


The Slow Zone

by Nasturtian



Series: Space husbands [1]
Category: The Expanse (TV), The Expanse Series - James S. A. Corey
Genre: And some not so vague, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Long-Distance Friendship, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Mutual Pining, Poetry, Slow Burn, Space Opera, Star Trek References, Vague Spoilers, fixit fic, opera in space, ’the martian’ references
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-09
Updated: 2018-11-03
Packaged: 2019-03-27 22:19:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 40,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13890321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nasturtian/pseuds/Nasturtian
Summary: Some time after the events of “Caliban’s War,” Prax realizes that he has a crush on Amos Burton.  He’s not particularly pleased about this.  Fortunately, being separated by astronomical distances means the he never has to worry about acting on his feelings....right?





	1. Prax

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prax is having bad dreams. If only he had someone to talk to...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is a mix of book and show canon - more book than show, since I’m more familiar with the books. So it will be a little spoilery as it progresses, but the show is different enough from the books that I really don’t think it’ll matter too much.

The _after._ That was how Prax thought of it - the place where he and Mei lived now.

There had been the _before,_ full of soybeans, Mei’s medical appointments, and all the ups and downs of a life that fell within the parameters of normality.

Then had come the _during,_ where everything had been fractured beyond recognition. The fall of the mirrors. Mei’s abduction. His own descent into starvation and near-madness. Coming back to himself by degrees aboard the _Rocinante._ Nicola’s betrayal. Mei, back in his arms. It all had a dreamlike quality in Prax’s mind, full of fierce and potent emotions, moving in a jerky, incoherent way that made it hard for him to recall what happened when. Not that he tried very hard. Actually, he did his best to push the _during_ out of his thoughts. It didn’t matter anymore. It was over. All that mattered was the present, the _after._

The _after_ was a strange mix of old and new, the familiar and the unfamiliar. Ganymede Station was still half in ruins more than a year after the crash, but it hummed with activity, populated by former residents and new arrivals united in their determination to rebuild it. Prax rejoiced to be part of a community again. It was a satisfying thing to look around at the hundreds of people milling around the central tube station at the shift change and to know that everyone there was dedicated to bringing the breadbasket of the Belt back to life.

Prax had worried that bringing Mei back to her old home after their stay on Luna would stir up traumatizing memories, but he had not taken into account the remarkable elasticity of childhood. Mei, nearly six years old and more precocious than ever, had settled easily enough into their new quarters. Their new life. She was already doing much better about being separated from Prax during the day (the first week had been frankly hellish for everyone involved). 

Prax had...adjusted. It was easier once he’d gotten Mei the VitaChip. Another parent - no doubt taking pity on him after witnessing what a struggle it was for him to leave his daughter behind even for the length of a school day - had been the one to suggest it. The tiny chip was embedded in Mei’s left wrist, where it transmitted her vitals and location to his hand terminal every five minutes. Mei’s new pediatrician (carefully vetted and so far free of any tendency to kidnap children and turn them into protomolecule-human hybrids) said that the chips were very popular right now. _Lots of people determined never to lose each other again,_ thought Prax. 

Yes, Mei was fine - even if she did refuse to go to sleep without Prax in the room. Their days wound down with him sitting on their living room couch with Mei curled beside him. When she fell asleep he carried her to her bed and tucked her in properly. Now and then she woke in the night, crying, but calmed quickly when he held her and spoke her. She usually didn’t even remember the incident in the morning.

Prax was the one having trouble keeping the _during_ from contaminating the _after._ He might go for a week or even longer without anything happening to disrupt his focus, but then something as inconsequential as a glimpse of a certain corridor would spark the memory of how he had once wandered there, foraging for edible plants that he could trade for information about Mei.

He wondered if he was alone in having these random stabs of recall assault his equilibrium. _Unlikely,_ he decided. _At least a third of the people on station lived here before. No one escaped undamaged._ And yet few spoke of it. It was as though everyone had agreed to keep their minds on the present with as little reference as possible to the sadness and loss that haunted the past. _It’s for the best. Probably. Now if only I could sleep..._

Ever since their return from Luna, he had suffered from nightmares. Sometimes he was chasing faceless people in lab coats through endless tunnels as they carried Mei away from him; sometimes he was in the ag dome with mirrors and glass falling all around him in a jagged, lethal rain. Worst of all was when he relived the scene on the outside of the _Roci_ , when he hurled the radioactive bait into space for the monster to follow - except, in his dream, the monster’s eyes (he could see them clearly, always) didn’t glow blue but were dark and soft. Mei’s eyes. 

He would jolt awake from these evil visions, stumble to Mei’s room, and watch her sleeping until his heart stopped hammering and the sweat dried on his skin. 

When he had gotten Mei back he had held her all night and prayed to whatever or whoever might be listening, pleading that his daughter would emerge from this horrible experience undamaged, pleading that he might be the one to bear any and all trauma in his own person. He didn’t know if this had anything to do with his current situation, but considered that it would be churlish to complain that things had fallen out according to his wishes. So he told himself that he didn’t mind the dreams, or at least that he could endure them. 

But after months of unrelentingly broken sleep, Prax wondered if the dreams would ever stop. The _during_ had shown him how closely connected his mental health was to the well-being of his physical self. It was almost offensive how fast organic concerns affected the working of the brain. Lingering guilt and the desire to do penance were all well and good, but he couldn’t afford to lose his grip due to something as basic as a lack of rest. 

Stopping to buy a paper cone of fried tofu on his way to pick Mei up from school, he considered his options. Relaxation meds? No. What if they made him so drowsy that the couldn’t hear Mei if she called for him? It wasn’t worth the risk.

But what else was there? _Therapy, I suppose,_ he thought, eating one of the salty golden cubes before folding down the top of the cone to keep the rest warm. Fried tofu was Mei’s favorite after-school snack. _But I don’t think I want to sit down with a stranger and talk about...all that._

Not a stranger, then. A friend? That might help. But he didn’t have any close friends on station. He knew his coworkers, of course, and made small talk with the parents of Mei’s classmates, but he had never brought up the _during_ with any of them. Even aside from his natural aversion to dwelling on it, he was afraid that people might think he was trying to revive the brief flash of notoriety that he had brought upon himself with his public plea for help in finding Mei. He shuddered. As far as he was concerned, the sooner everyone forgot about that, the better. 

_I wish Basia was still here. No, no I don’t. He lost Katoa. I wouldn’t know what to say to him even if he was around. Then who? Someone who understands my context, who won’t second-guess my motives..._

There was the crew of the _Rocinante_ , of course. They had lived through most of the _during_ right along with him. _What am I going to do, call them up and say “Hi, how’ve you been, do you know anything about getting rid of nightmares?”_ The idea was laughable. Anyway, whatever they were doing these days, they were certainly far too busy to concern themselves with the troubles of a botanist. 

Here his tube car arrived at the stop for Mei’s school, so Prax dismissed these concerns for the time being and made his way through the sliding doors, holding the paper cone close to protect it from the jostling crowd. _I’ll be all right. I have to be._

***

That evening, when Prax’s hand terminal chimed, he stared at the screen for several seconds in disbelief. He had an incoming call from James Holden. 

“Really?” he said out loud. “This raises some questions about coincidence and the nature of the universe.” Mei, used to her father talking to himself while he typed, just said “Mmmhmm” and didn’t move from where she lay beside him on the couch. Prax inhaled deeply and accepted the call.

Holden’s face appeared on the small screen. _Doesn’t look like he’s been getting enough sleep either._ The camera zoomed out and showed that he was sitting at the table in the galley, with Naomi and Alex on either side of him. “Hey, Doc!” said Holden, smiling. “Is this a good time?”

The sight of those familiar faces in equally familiar surroundings burst the dam in Prax’s mind. Memories the _during_ poured through in a brightly colored flood. Some of them were sharp enough to cut (those hours spent sitting in his cabin, telling himself over and over again that Mei was probably dead - and the monster, dear God, _the monster_ ) but some were...pleasant. Happy, even. He found himself thinking of a quotation from the distant depths of secondary school: _It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..._

Thankfully the lag time gave him space to collect himself before answering. “As good a time as any,” he said, hoping he looked relaxed and casual in his sweatpants and old t-shirt and not worn out and unkempt. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing much. We were in the neighborhood, more or less, and thought we’d say hi,” said Holden, when ten seconds had elapsed (time enough for Prax’s words to get to him, for Holden to listen and respond, and for his reply to reach Ganymede). 

_Maybe they’re going to dock here!_ thought Prax, with a leap of the heart. It sank down again when Holden continued: “Sorry we can’t stop by, but since we’re passing close enough to chat without too much lag, Amos suggested we check in on you and the pumpkin - Amos, get your butt over here! What are you doing, anyway?” The camera shifted to the right until it came to the food dispenser, where Amos was standing. He grinned broadly and gave the screen a thumbs-up with the hand that was not holding a bowl of something steaming.

The feelings that swamped Prax as soon as he’d seen the other members of the crew were amplified by a factor of ten at the sight of the big mechanic. _Amos Burton. My own personal savior._ Everything about Amos - from his size to his shaved head to his dirty jumpsuit with the rolled-up sleeves - should have been intimidating, but to Prax it all said _Friend. Safe._

“That’s really nice of you,” said Prax, again grateful for the delay in transmission time that gave him time to sort through the unexpectedly emotional reaction he was having to this conversation. “Mei’s right here, she’s sleeping - sort of.” He tilted his hand terminal so that they could see the little girl, her black hair spread out across his lap like a shadow. She moved and blinked, roused by the voices.

Naomi put her hand over her mouth, Alex grimaced, and Holden hunched low, as if this would make him less likely to disturb the child. “Oh! Sorry! Do you want us to call back another time?”

“No, no, I was actually thinking of calling you myself. I wondered if you had any advice for dealing with, um, with bad dreams.”

“Is she having trouble sleeping, Doc?” said Amos, coming over to the table with a bowlful of noodles and sitting down beside Naomi.

“Well, no, not her so much as - as me.” Prax waited for his words to get to the _Roci_ , waited to see who would laugh. 

No one did. Holden and Alex nodded seriously, Naomi looked sad, and Amos’s big forehead stayed furrowed with concern. 

“Understandable,” said Alex. “The stuff you’ve lived through would give anyone nightmares.”

“Do they ever go away?” Prax had not meant to say that - especially not so plaintively - but it just slipped out. 

“Oh...yeah,” said Holden, a bit unconvincingly. “I mean, with time. They fade, get pushed out by other stuff.”

“Mostly,” added Naomi. Prax hoped he was imagining the haunted look in her eyes. _She never did find her baby boy._

At this point Mei sat up, her face going from dazed to delighted as soon as she saw who Prax was talking to. “Amos!” she squealed. 

“Wait, sweetheart,” said Prax. “See the numbers counting down in the corner of the screen? When it gets to zero, you can talk.” He threw the call onto the wall monitor so that he could set down his hand terminal and pull Mei onto his lap properly. 

“Oh. OK.” Mei narrowed her eyes at the timer. “Three...two...one. My turn! Hi Amos! Hi Alex-and-Naomi-and-Jim! Are you coming to see us?”

“Sorry, kiddo,” said Naomi. “We can’t right now. But you look great! You’ve grown so much! Are you glad to be back on Ganymede?”

“Yeah. I like my new room. And I have worms!”

“You have...worms?” 

“Red wrigglers,” clarified Prax. “They’re a kind of earthworm - they’ll eat nearly anything and turn it into compost. Mei’s class is learning how the recycling system works, and they all got to take some home. She feeds them herself.”

As soon as this transmitted, everyone on the crew looked relieved and laughed. “Like father, like daughter!” said Alex. “Sounds like you’re going to be a great scientist, Mei!”

“Now, pumpkin, listen up,” said Amos, after slurping down a mouthful of noodles. “Your daddy’s having bad dreams at night. What do you think we should do?”

Mei looked at Prax quizzically. “I didn’t know grownups could have bad dreams!”

“We can,” said Prax, with feeling.

“Well...when I have a bad dream, you give me a hug and talk to me,” said Mei. “If you want I can do that. Or tell you a story.”

“Oh yeah, Mother Elise used to tell me stories when I had nightmares!” said Holden, beaming. Then he screeched (there was no other word for it) and threw his arms up over his head protectively. He must have knocked over his hand terminal as he did so, since the camera suddenly treated Prax and Mei to a view of the galley ceiling while a confusion of shouts and laughter came over the speakers. 

A moment later the camera was restored to its original position. Holden looked rumpled and disgruntled, while Naomi, Alex, and Amos were flushed with laughter. 

“Sorry about that,” said Holden, smoothing his hair. “My wonderful crew has decided that I talk about my parents too much, and they’re trying to wean me of the habit by sticking their nasty, slobbery fingers in my ears every time I slip up.”

Mei shouted with laughter. “Amos! You showed me that trick!”

“Yes, I remember,” said Prax, involuntarily covering his own ears with his hands. “I’ve only just gotten her to stop doing that, by the way. Thanks so much for reminding her.”

“That’s my girl!” said Amos, while Naomi and Alex high-fived each other over Holden’s head. 

“ _Anyway,_ ” said Holden, “As I was about to say before being interrupted by a pack of idiots - should we tell your dad a story, pumpkin? Do you think it would help him sleep better?”

Mei bounced up and down on Prax’s lap while she waited for the timer to finish counting down. Prax pressed his face into her hair to hide his smile at her excitement. “Yes! Yes, he wants a story!” said Mei. “A good story! A long one.”

“All right. Do you know the story of Jack and the beanstalk?”

“No. What kind of bean? Soy?”

Prax laughed, and a few seconds later the _Roci_ crew joined in. “Nope,” said Holden, shaking his head. “Not soy. Magic.”

“That’s stupid!”

Prax mouthed silent apologies over the top of Mei’s head, but Holden was unfazed.

“Coincidentally, you little skeptic, that’s exactly what Jack’s mother said when he traded their cow for five magic beans...”

Holden had gotten Jack halfway up the beanstalk when Naomi glanced down at her hand terminal and grimaced. “Sorry to interrupt, guys, but we’ve got an incoming call from Fred.”

Holden sighed and stood up. “Oh, fine. I’ll head up to ops and take it there. But I tell you what - I bet Alex would _love_ to continue the story for you, Plant Guy!”

“I’ll come with you, Jim,” said Naomi, getting to her feet as well. “It was great talking to you, Prax and Mei! Don’t be strangers, OK? Call or leave a message anytime. We miss you both.” She patted Alex on the shoulder. “Go for it, Alex!”

Prax was going to protest that there was no need to prolong the joke, but a look at Mei’s delighted face made him keep quiet. _This is really for her, not you. Let her enjoy it._

Alex, chuckling and shaking his head, said: “All right, gang, I’ll do my best. Can’t say that I remember much of what happens next, so I’m going to make it up as I go along.” He had soon installed Jack in an atmo-rated ship and sent him on an aerial recon mission over the giant’s cloudtop kingdom, culminating in a chase scene where the giant swatted Jack away “like a man slappin’ a bug.” Mei cheered.

Here Alex, too, was pulled away by more prosaic duties, so he passed the baton to Amos, who had finished his noodles and was listening to the story with a look of faint puzzlement on his broad face.

“My turn, huh?” he said, centering the camera on himself and scratching his head. “I’m warning you, I know even less of this story than Alex did, so this is going to be totally made up.”

Mei was quick to express her complete confidence in Amos’s narrative skills. Prax tried to look encouraging while at the same time wondering if off-the-cuff storytelling by Amos was a good idea with a five-year-old in the room. 

He was pleasantly surprised when Amos did a creditable job of extracting Jack from the wreckage of his craft and bringing him to the giant’s stronghold on foot, where he was soon caught up in a brawl with the castle guards. 

“Then what happened?” demanded Mei, when Jack had dispatched his opponents with scientific speed and accuracy. 

“Ah, Naomi will tell you - next time,” said Amos. “I’m out of ideas - plus I saw that yawn, pumpkin. You should go to bed.”

Mei’s protests were overridden, promises for the continuation of the story were extracted, goodbyes were said, and she went to change into her pajamas. 

“Thank you, Amos,” said Prax, as Mei disappeared into her room. “Thanks to all of you. I’ve been kind of...trying to pretend all that stuff with Mei and the protomolecule didn’t happen, you know? And I think it’s been messing with my head. It was really good to talk with you guys. You really made Mei’s day.” _And mine,_ he didn’t add.

“Shit, it’s not a problem,” said Amos. “Least we can do. Listen, I know we weren’t that much help about the dreams. Sorry. It’s just one of those things you have to get through. Just remember that they’re only dreams. You did good. You’ve got your girl back, and by the looks of it you’re doing a great job with her. You should be proud.” 

Again Prax was overwhelmed by a surge of gratitude towards this big, uncouth man. _I’m definitely short on sleep,_ he thought, realizing how close he was to tears. He managed a semi-dignified “Thank you.”

“Oh - we’ll be a lot farther off next time so the lag will be too bad for a conversation. We’ll have to swap recordings.”

“That will be fine, if you really want to - there’s no obligation.”

“Doc. Seriously. Glad to be of use to you and the muppet,” said Amos, and ended the call. 

***

Something about that talk with the _Roci_ crew had gone a long way towards loosening the knot of tension inside Prax’s chest - a knot that had been there so long he’d half-forgotten it was there. They hadn’t talked much about what the crew were up to (what _were_ they doing? He should pay more attention to the news feeds), or what he and Mei were up to...it had been a chat, without anyone having to explain anything. It had been quite extraordinarily restful.

Mei seemed calmer too. She submitted to being tucked into her own bed, talking all the while about the story and what she thought should happen next. Prax sat beside her and listened to her rattle on, stroking her hair and saying “Uh huh” and “Good idea” when it was called for. Presently her words slowed, then stopped. She slept. 

Prax went back to the living area, leaving Mei’s bedroom door open in case she cried out, and finished his reports. Then he went to bed too. 

Sleep did not come quickly for him. His general anxiety had lessened, yes, but in its place was the feeling that he was on the verge of a discovery - if only he knew what question to ask, what step to take.

_The question. What is the question?_ he wondered, staring up at the softly lit ceiling with his arms behind his head. _The question is...why did I avoid contacting them for so long? Why do I feel so much better now that I have? And why am I so sad?_

This last question was itself an answer. Sadness - that’s what he was feeling. _What have I got to be sad about? I have Mei back. I’m helping rebuild our home. We have plenty to eat. We’re healthy. We have good friends..._ Ah. Yes, that was the other thing. He did have good friends, but not on Ganymede. His good friends were either dead or absolutely elsewhere. 

He rolled onto his side. _So I’m lonely, and I didn’t want to talk to my friends because I didn’t want to be reminded of why. Thank goodness that’s not pathetic in any way._

He let his mind wander, imagining comforting and impossible scenarios. Most of them involved the _Roci_ crew coming for a long visit, walking the halls of Ganymede with him and Mei (Amos carrying Mei on his shoulders), admiring the progress being made on the restoration (Amos thumping him on the back and saying “Fucking amazing, Doc!”), preparing a meal together in his kitchen (Amos stirring a pot of real tomato sauce)...

...Amos in bed with him...

Prax opened his eyes. _Oh._

It was understandable, surely. When he had been at his lowest ebb in every way, Amos had been the one to show him around, to listen to him, to trust him (even when he shouldn’t have)...and to touch him. Prax had never realized that a person could be starved for human contact as well as for food. Never realized it, that is, until he had found himself leaning into the feel of Amos’s huge hand on his shoulder - waiting for it, relying on it. Amos had kept him grounded, connected to reality, and on more than one occasion had literally carried him where he needed to be.

And then there was that night on Tycho - 

( - the night where Prax woke up weeping, and tried to stifle the sound in his pillow, and then his couch had buckled under Amos’s weight as the big man lay down beside him, curled carefully around him, navigating the narrow confines of the mattress, and Prax sobbed into Amos’s chest until he exhausted himself and fell asleep again. Then had come the morning, and Prax woke again to find himself wrapped in Amos’s arms, his face stuck to Amos’s shirt by a mess of dried tears and snot, and he had pulled free and scrambled away in profound embarrassment, not knowing where to look or what to say. But Amos had smiled, and changed his shirt, and ambled out of the room whistling tunelessly - )

\- the night that neither Prax nor Amos had ever spoken about. 

For a while it bothered Prax, but then the headlong rush of finding Mei again and of everything that came afterwards had all but driven the incident from his mind. It was not forgotten, but sectioned off along with the rest of the _during_ , where it could not bother him with irritating questions about what it may or may not have meant. What might have come of it if he’d had the courage to bring it up. And why Amos (the most candid person he’d ever met) had never done so.

Now, with sudden clarity, Prax saw the attachment that he had formed. He acknowledged it with surprise and disapproval. Ever since his divorce - and more especially since what Nicola had said about him during the search for Mei - he had considered that part of himself to be battered beyond repair. Apparently he’d underestimated his own capacity for stupidity. _It’s not even a proper crush,_ he chided himself. _You practically **imprinted** on the poor man. And the only reason he cares about you is for Mei’s sake. What could we even do if we were - like that with each other? I can’t move to his ship. He can’t move here. It’s non-viable._

Strangely, this thought comforted him. The complete impossibility of his absurd feelings turning into anything more made it less serious - something that could be enjoyed, like a teenager’s crush on a movie star. 

He fell asleep thinking about the way Amos had looked in nothing but a towel, and rationalized it by theorizing that it might help alter the pattern of his dreams. 

It did. In fact it helped to such an alarming degree that the next morning (while hurriedly changing his sheets before Mei woke up) he swore he wouldn’t try _that_ method ever again. _Thank goodness we’re separated by astronomical distances, or this might get awkward fast._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AUGH WHAT DO YOU THINK TELL ME but be gentle it’s my first foray out of Regency England in YEARS.


	2. Amos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amos doesn’t want things. 
> 
> But when he does, it makes life interesting for everyone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haha WHOOPS this chapter turned into a 10.5k monster without my knowlege or consent. There are spoilers for “Abbadon’s Gate,” “Cibola Burn,” and “Babylon’s Ashes,” but I’ve done my best to keep them mild. With the obvious exception of the existence of Djuna and Natalia, but they’re so mixed up in this story I couldn’t help it.
> 
> I’m trying to stick to the book timeline, more or less, hence the time jumps. Also Mei is the age she was in the books, which is a bit younger than the show.

Amos knew that the secret to contentment was to keep his expectations low. Food, somewhere to sleep, something to keep him busy, someone to follow - that was what he wanted. Everything else (beer, nice guns, a tribe, someone to fight or fuck when he needed to blow off steam) was a bonus, but not a necessity. 

From this perspective, his role as the mechanic/muscle on the _Rocinante_ was comfortable to the point of opulence. He had it all, right down to the fighting (courtesy of any pirates or whacko scientists they might come across) and the fucking (at every station with a licensed brothel, which was most of them). 

The thing where he and the rest of the crew sent stories to Prax and Mei was in its own category. It would never have occurred to him to even want it - “it” being the continuation of the friendship that had grown between him, the little botanist, and the little botanist’s even littler daughter during the shitstorm that followed the Ganymede Incident. Helping Prax get Mei back was the best thing Amos had ever done, no contest. He hoarded the memories of that time carefully, ready to be pulled out and examined whenever his soul was feeling particularly grimy. A child had needed saving, and he’d saved her. Not by himself, of course, but he liked to think he’d played a major role.

And then he’d moved on. There was always another job somewhere, more to do. Amos hadn’t thought twice about it when they’d left Prax and Mei on Luna to wait for their home moon to be repaired enough for them to return. There was him and his tribe on the _Roci_ , and there was everyone else. It was the way things worked.

All the same, Amos checked on Ganymede Station’s status now and then, and smiled when one day he saw Prax’s name on the list of people on the Reconstruction Committee. _That’ll be Chrissie pulling strings. I hope Doc has fun making Ganymede as cascade-proof as humanly possible - can’t think of anyone better to do it._

The _Roci_ flew from one end of the solar system to the other on odd jobs for a few months, until they happened to pass close enough to Ganymede that Amos figured they could have a talk with the Mengs. He mentioned it to the captain, who lit right up at the idea - probably glad for the chance to do something that had nothing to do with the political squabbles that took up an increasing amount of his time. 

Holden gathered everyone in the galley and made the call to Prax and Mei, which turned into the story of Jack and the Space Giant. After that they exchanged recorded messages because of the increased lag time. The crew would toss the story back and forth between them like a ball until they filled up ten or fifteen minutes of video time and then send it along. 

In return they got recordings of Mei showing them her illustrations for the story, explaining them in excruciating detail while Prax hovered in the background, looking embarrassed and proud. Or sometimes it was Mei talking about her day at school, or her new shoes that helped her run extra fast because they were purple, or the weird shit her worms had eaten. When Prax talked - which wasn’t much, he seemed happy to let Mei take center stage - it was about committee meetings, plants, and Mei.

The Meng’s messages were a welcome reminder that life existed outside the walls of their gunship. The whole crew got a kick out of them. That is to say, they made Holden and Alex laugh, whereas Naomi smiled and watched the recordings with a distant kind of look that made Amos’s stomach ache. 

To Amos they were more than amusing slices of life from people he’d helped once. They were a gift. Every second of Mei being a goofy little girl doing goofy-little-girl stuff warmed him from the inside out. His childhood, _as_ a childhood, had been more what you might call theoretical, and seeing a real one played out in front of him was an education and a miracle. 

And there was Prax. He seemed genuinely happy apart from the nightmares, but it sounded like even those had eased up - at least, when Amos brought it up, he said “It’s fine” and changed the subject. Seeing him relaxed and smiling, not stretched to the breaking point with fear and worry but instead helping Mei invent captions for her drawings or arguing with her over whether or not she needed a haircut...it gave Amos that easy, loose feeling that he usually only got after kicking someone’s ass. _I kicked Strickland’s ass. Well, shot him in the head. Maybe it’s leftovers from that,_ he thought, when trying to analyze the phenomenon.

***

The space-giant story wrapped up after a month or so, mostly because they’d been blackmailed into schlepping a reporter and her groupies out to the Ring. It left less time for fun stuff. Amos was sorry to see the flow of messages between the _Roci_ and the Mengs slow down, but he did nothing to keep it going. If they were ready to move on he wasn’t going to chase after them. 

But then came the day when Amos went back to his cabin after a long day of fighting with the _Roci_ ’s wiring, fished out his hand terminal from where it had gotten wedged under the crash couch’s gel pad, and found a message from Prax. It was in his personal inbox, not sent to the crew in general. He flopped down onto his bunk and pushed play. 

Prax’s face appeared on the hand terminal screen. He was in his living room - Amos recognized it by now, with its walls covered with an intricate tracery of climbing plants under the glow of full-spectrum lights - and he looked upset. Pupils dilated, breath coming short, a sheen of sweat on his forehead. Amos felt his pulse speed up as he waited for Prax to speak. _Mei. What’s happened to Mei?_

“Hi, Amos,” said Prax. “Sorry about this. I...uh...it’s Mei. She’s fine,” he added quickly, as if he could see the way Amos’s expression darkened. “She’s at a classmate’s birthday party. A slumber party. She’s not far away - just at the other end of the corridor - and I know the parents, they’re good people, but - it’s the first time we’ve spent a night apart since, well, you know.

“I thought I’d be OK. I was going to do some work here, then watch a movie or something - but ever since I got back from dropping her off I’ve been sitting here, staring at her VitaChip readout. I can’t seem to get up. I think I might be having some kind of panic attack. My heart rate is through the roof and I can’t _think_ right.” He pushed his hand through his hair - front to back, smoothing it, then back to front, making stick up like a cockatoo’s crest. Amos grinned. _Cute._

“You don’t have to respond to this, obviously,” Prax continued. “I just wanted to talk to someone. Saying all this out loud helps me see how foolish I’m being. Which is good. I know Mei’s having a great time, and if she has any problems at all it’ll take me ten seconds to get to her. But...if you have a minute, I wouldn’t mind hearing back from you. What you and the others are up to. What you had for lunch. Anything. I could use the distraction.” He pushed his hair back down again, causing Amos a brief pang of regret. “I don’t mean to impose on you in any way. I’m sorry. I should edit this but I probably won’t. Thanks for listening, even if it’s only indirectly.” The recording ended with a shot of Prax staring into the camera, mouth frozen in a bleak half-smile. 

Amos tapped the hand terminal against his chin. What, if anything, could he say to all that? He was proud of Prax for letting Mei go to her friend’s party in spite of his fears, and he could certainly understand why Prax felt so twitchy. But he wasn’t good at comforting people. He always said the wrong thing. Then again, Prax hadn’t asked for comfort. He wanted something to keep his mind busy. Amos knew what that was like. He checked the time stamp on the message - it had come in almost an hour ago. Meaning Prax was probably still on his couch, watching Mei’s vital signs for any aberrations.

Amos engaged his camera.

“Hey, Doc. Sorry you’re having a tough time. Not much I can say about that - you know it all already - so I’m gonna tell you about the fucking gremlin that’s causing a power drain in the head.” After rambling about that for a few minutes he ended the recording and shot it to Ganymede, hoping it would take Prax’s mind off his troubles for a little while.

***

This exchange turned out to be significant, not so much because of what was said but because it set a precedent. From then on it wasn’t uncommon for Amos to get a message from Prax a couple times a week. Nothing major - mostly Prax thinking out loud about hydroponics or the effects of low gravity on bees. Mei showed up briefly in a few of the messages and was mentioned in all of them. For his part, Amos talked about whatever repairs and maintenance he was working on, or the dumb shit the reporter and her crew said, or what Fred and Chrissie where hassling Holden about, or what bet he and Alex had going at any given moment. The difference was that it wasn’t the Mengs and the crew talking anymore. It was him and Prax.

Naomi noticed that Amos had taken to carrying his hand terminal with him. “About damn time,” she said. “What changed your mind?”

“I got tired about people bitching about not being able to get ahold of me,” he said amiably. “It’s not easy, being the most important guy on the ship.” Naomi smacked him on the shoulder but didn’t nag him about it. 

_What **did** change my mind?_ he wondered, kicking open the hatch and sliding down the crew ladder to the machine shop. _I never used to bother. Guess I don’t want to miss a message._ But why was it so important that he know the moment a message arrived? It wasn’t because of Mei. He was glad, more glad than he could ever express, that she was home and happy. But it was Prax that he looked forward to seeing. _Weird._

Or maybe it wasn’t so weird. Amos knew his view of parents and children was warped, but he hadn’t run across many people who’d made him consider changing his opinion. So when he’d met Prax, whose search for his daughter had been the only thing keeping him on his feet, it had hit him hard. 

It wasn’t as though he didn’t know anyone else who cared. Everyone in his _Roci_ tribe cared about other people in varying ways and degrees - Holden to the point of idiocy sometimes - but this was his first encounter with anything like the laser-beam intensity of Prax’s love for Mei. It was an almost tangible source of heat and light. Amos - so accomplished in detachment, so adept at protecting himself from the world - had been drawn to him instantly, wanting to see by that light, wanting to warm himself at its flames.

It was a problem.

Amos had worked out rules for himself. He didn’t want things, and he didn’t fuck people he liked. It was simpler that way. Safer. He understood liking people, friendships. He understood sex. The shit only hit the fan when he tried to combine the two. Sidestepping the whole issue was an easy fix, so that’s what he did. He wondered why more people didn’t use this method, since unsuccessful romantic relationships were clearly one of the leading causes of human misery. Apparently it was worth the trouble for most people. Not being one of them, he carried on his way and counted his blessings. 

There were exceptions to every rule. 

Prax was Amos’s friend. Fine. He also exerted a bizarre and powerful pull on him. Amos couldn’t look at him without wanting to touch him. Not so fine. So he’d been careful about it when Prax was on the _Roci_ , and even more careful when they shared a room for a few days station-side. But he couldn’t stop putting his hands on him. Nothing inappropriate. Friendly, helpful contact. Occasionally lifesaving. Once threateningly. The only time he’d really fucked it up was that night on Tycho.

Prax had been crying in his sleep, calling out for Mei, and Amos couldn’t just lie in his bunk on the other side of the room and listen to him. The smart thing - the _normal_ thing - would have been to shake Prax awake, ask him if he was OK, maybe get him a drink. But Amos knew that some sorrows went too deep to be soothed with words, and he’d let that knowledge be his reason to slide into bed with Prax and hold him close. Prax had been so far gone that he hadn’t even asked Amos what he was doing, only cried himself back to sleep. 

Amos had slept, too. He always slept better with another person in the bunk. It was his favorite thing about brothels - well, his second-favorite, but still. It was the only time he ever achieved fathoms-deep, blackout oblivion without the assistance of drugs or pure exhaustion.

Prax hadn’t been too happy to wake up glued to Amos’s shirt the next morning, and Amos had played it as low-key as possible. Didn’t want to make it weird, after all. 

The search for Mei had started really gaining traction after that, so it had been easy to let the whole thing slide. Amos was confident that he’d washed his hands of the whole business. Checking on Prax and Mei later? Nothing more than curiosity. The story thing? Helping out a good man and his little girl. Exchanging messages with Prax? They were friends, and friends talked to each other. 

But it occurred to him now, as he pressed his hand against the thin rectangular shape in his pocket, that there might be a bit more to it than that. _Good thing we’re not going anywhere near Ganymede for God knows how long. This’ll wear off soon enough. It’s not like I can fuck things up when there’s nothing to fuck up, right?_

Right.

***

Shit happened.

The Ring, the slow zone, Peaches nearly killing them, Red saving them, accidentally joining a mutiny, carting Peaches to prison and making friends with her on the way. 

The usual.

Amos told Prax all about it when things had calmed down some. 

“I kind of don’t want to tell you any of what’s going on here,” said Prax in his response, when he’d finished expressing his dismay and amazement at the _Roci_ ’s exploits, and gratitude that they’d made it though alive. “It’s so _boring_ compared to what you’ve been doing - not that I’m complaining. I’ve had enough of adventures.” He sounded so fervent that Amos laughed.

“Don’t sweat it, Doc,” he said in his next recording. “This isn’t a pissing contest. I like hearing about Mei and your ferns and shit. Keep it coming.” He meant it, too. It was nice to experience a stable, quiet life, even if it was from a distance. 

So Prax told him about Mei, and how the Jack and the Space Giant story had set off an obsession with listening to stories - she listened to audiobooks for hours every day, including when it was time to sleep, and it had noticeably increased her willingness to go to bed at a reasonable hour. He told Amos about how Mei lost her first tooth when biting into an apple and narrowly avoided swallowing it (“Which would have been a grave tragedy, by her reckoning, so it’s a good thing she spit it out”); about the last mirror being sent into orbit, marking the end of the first stage of reconstruction.

Things carried on like this for a couple of years - long enough for Amos to be certain that he didn’t have any unusual attraction for Prax. He didn’t even mind when Prax started mentioning Djuna, the mother of Mei’s best friend Natalia, on a suspiciously regular basis.

Within a few weeks’ worth of messages Amos had learned that Djuna was a scientist who worked with biofilms, which Amos thought meant nature documentaries until he looked it up and discovered that it had something to with bacteria-filled slime. She was also a single parent, having lost her wife during the Ganymede Incident, and had only recently returned to their former home with their only child. She and Prax took turns picking up and dropping off the girls at school, since their apartments were only one level apart.

Amos told himself he was glad Prax had a friend to help him out. And he was glad. He wasn’t an asshole.

He told Prax about their latest job, which was to head through one of the newly opened ring gates to a planet called either Ilus or New Terra (depending on who you asked) and break up a fight between the settlers and Royal Charter Energy. “Not sure what the hell they expect us - well, what they expect Cap to do,” he said to the camera, “but hey, the money’s good. Sucks that it’s so far away - we’ve got to be under hard burn for a few months to get there in decent time, so that’s going to get old fast.”

Prax’s response was full of him being interested, anxious, and trying to disguise his rabid curiosity about the plant life of an alien planet as mild interest. Amos resolved to bring him back a sample if he could, or some photos as the very least. 

And then Prax signed off with: “By the way - Djuna and Nat are going to be moving in with us.”

Amos sat on the edge of his crash couch, feeling like he’d been punched, and stared at his hand terminal’s display for a while. It wanted to know if he wanted to save the message or delete it. His finger hovered over _delete_ button. _Don’t be stupid,_ he told himself. _Who cares if Doc and his lady friend are setting up housekeeping together? And why are you surprised? You knew he liked her. He knows that her favorite flavor of ice cream is green tea, for fuck’s sake. It’s a good thing for him and it won’t affect you at all. No big deal._ He pushed _save._

It really shouldn’t have been a big deal. But somehow...it was. Amos no longer looked forward to the hours when Alex brought the _Roci_ down to a humane level of speed so that they could all shit, shower, and shave. He preferred being on the juice at high G’s so that he didn’t have to notice that he was always cold and tired and itching for a fight with someone - so he didn’t have to look at his crewmates with crooked eyes, picking out ways to break, crush, snap - 

He didn’t do any of it. Instead he used every available off-burn moment making sure every rifle, shotgun, and pistol they had was cleaned and oiled and ready for use. When he was satisfied with them he shifted his attention to getting himself into a similarly useful condition. _You fucked up. You fucked up,_ ran constantly through his head, as he pitted himself against the resistance bands and magnetic weights until he was shaking and drenched with sweat. _You wanted something. You know what happens when you do that. You fucked up._

No one commented on his behavior. They were all feeling the strain of the extended burn, and it made everyone cranky. Holden, who clearly assumed that Amos’s preoccupation with perfect guns (literal and metaphorical) was rooted in his desire to be prepared for whatever they might encounter on Ilus, often joined him in the gym. Amos made desultory conversation when it was called for, ignored all incoming messages from Ganymede, and hoped against hope that there would be some decent fights once he and Holden went down the well. 

To his great satisfaction, their time planetside turned into an even bigger clusterfuck than anyone had expected. It went a long way toward clearing his head. Yeah, so maybe he took a few pictures of some plants (or “plant analogs,” as that cute scientist who had a crush on Holden insisted on calling them), and maybe he stuck a few leaves in the pocket of his duffel bag. That didn’t mean anything. His whole attention was given to keeping Holden and himself alive - and a damn exciting task it turned out to be. He even made friends with a lady who might have been a real pleasant distraction if he hadn’t had to shoot her. Then he’d gotten shot himself. Typical.

By the time they left the hell-planet behind for good, he was in roughly the same condition as the ship itself - beat to shit but functional. He might look like what Holden called a cyborg pirate with all the bandages and medical casing on his leg, hand, and neck, but he was home, and he felt like himself again. No more crooked eyes. 

There was a lot of catching up to do with Alex and Naomi, who had kept themselves pretty busy while Holden played diplomat - Naomi trying to sabotage the RCE’s ship, getting captured, and then rescuing herself, while Alex saved a shipful of refugees from crashing into the planet by using the _Roci_ as a tugboat. 

There were enough stories to swap and enough work to do to keep them occupied for a long time, which was good, since it was going to take them a year and a half to get back to Tycho. And they had to stop by Luna first to drop off the man who had been responsible for most of the carnage on Ilus (not counting the damage inflicted by the planet itself), who was now a prisoner on his way to a trial. He was the one who’d shot Amos. Amos had volunteered to simplify things by killing the guy, but Holden wasn’t having any of that.

Even a list of repairs and patches that filled several pages on the shipwide to-do list wasn’t enough to dampen the general euphoria of the crew. No one could help smiling and reaching out to pat the other person on the back or something whenever they met, simply for the pleasure of being together again. It was like a drug, even more powerful than the ones Amos had pumped into him once a day to ward off infection.

Amos pushed himself too hard. He should have known better. Hell, he _did_ know better. But there was so much that needed to be done and it felt so good to be doing it - out there in the black with Naomi and a couple of welding torches, while Alex and Holden kept up a stream of stories and banter over the shared frequency - that he worked longer and harder than was smart. Which was why he was back in the med bay, settled into a couch for a nice extended session at the mercy of the autodoc.

Alex sat with him for a while, shooting the shit and accepting Amos’s good-natured harangue about what he’d done to their ship. Naomi and Holden stopped by now and then to check on him and make sure he had snacks (the meds he was on gave him the munchies like crazy). But mostly he was on his own, dozing and enjoying the haze brought on by high-octane painkillers. 

Eventually he got bored and pulled out his hand terminal. He’d gotten out of the habit of using it on Ilus, since there wasn’t a network. Now that he had it again, he realized he hadn’t checked his messages. _Wonder if Djuna and Natalia have moved in with Doc and Mei yet,_ he thought, and waited to see if the idea hurt. It didn’t. Good. Seemed he done enough processing.

He opened his inbox. 

There were a couple dozen messages waiting to be looked at. A few of them were automatic updates from some feeds he subscribed to, but the rest - eighteen of them - were from Prax. They ranged from ten minutes to ten seconds in length, getting shorter as their timestamp got nearer the present. Amos whistled. _Damn._

He let the entire collection play straight through. The first few messages weren’t anything out of the ordinary - Prax speculating about the biology of Ilus, Mei showing off the bumpy white nubs where her permanent teeth were growing in - but after a while all Prax talked about was the news that came back through the Ring. He had plenty of questions and comments and theories but seemed to spend most of his time repeating things like “I hope you guys are OK - haven’t heard from you in a while” and “I heard that it’s you and Captain Holden down on the surface. Be careful.”

Amos knew he shouldn’t be enjoying the sight of Prax progressing from interested to concerned to downright fucking haggard with worry, but it was nice to have someone that invested in his welfare. Nice, but strange. Unprecedented, even. It wasn’t as if no one else cared about him - Naomi, Holden, and Alex did, he knew that. But they were his tribe, his family. What happened to one of them affected them all, like they were the linked parts of one body or one machine. ( _Maybe a little of both,_ he thought, giving his metal-and-plastic-encased hand a flex.) They were all woven together; caring was part of the deal. But Prax, now. Prax didn’t have to care about him unless he wanted to. 

It was a good thing he’d left his insane, impossible _want_ for Prax behind on Ilus, or all this unsolicited caring would have gone straight to his head. Not to mention other places.

The final message, sent about a week ago, consisted of Prax staring into the camera for a few seconds and then saying: “The stories coming back through the gate are getting crazier all the time. I have no idea what’s accurate and what’s exaggeration, but I...we...I really hope you come through it all right. Take care of yourself. Please.” Amos watched this one a few times in a row (noting that the color of Prax’s hair was heading more towards salt than pepper these days, and wondering how much of that was his fault) before it occurred to him that it might be a good thing to let Prax know he was all right.

On went his camera. Amos looked into it blearily, seeing his own face in the small inset screen on the lower right. He needed to shave his head again. “Hey, Doc. I’m OK. We all are. Also I’m high as a fucking _kite_ on meds right now - I’ve had to spend some time of my own in the machine shop.” He held up his hand as evidence. “So this probably isn’t going to be the most coherent of messages. But I wanted to tell you I got all your recordings and I’m sorry I couldn’t answer before. No network down there on the hell-planet. But we made it out, in spite of death slugs and storms and oh yeah, a whole continent blowing up. The _Roci_ got kind of beat up too but she’ll get us back. No hard burn this time. Alex says eighteen months.”

He scratched his neck, where the newly-grown skin was pink and itchy. “Anyway. Like I said, I’m fine. I’ve got to regrow a couple of fingers and some leg muscle but it’s not big deal. Can’t help but notice that you look a little rough yourself, though. You should get some sleep, have a good meal, relax. We’re good. I’m good. Don’t worry so much, OK? Especially not about me.” Suddenly it was an intolerable thing, that Prax should care. “I ain’t worth it, Doc. I’m just a shady guy who’s lucky enough to work with good people. You...you deserve more than that. You go right on ahead and make a family with that nice lady and the girls.”

He cut off the recording. _Shit, where did all that come from? These meds are stronger than I thought._ He considered erasing the last few seconds of the message. Then he said “Fuck it,” sent the whole thing, and succumbed to the soft clutch of drugged sleep.

***

Prax’s response arrived almost exactly ten hours later, meaning that he had responded instantly. Amos watched it in the machine shop, sitting on the floor with his back against a storage unit - the very one Prax had once neglected to close properly, thus nearly ending both their lives prematurely via high-velocity hand tools. _Here we go. I hope didn’t sound as stupid as I think I did._

“Thank God you’re all right,” Prax began, with impressive fervor for a man who, to Amos’s knowledge, didn’t believe in God. “You’re right, I’ve been a little...stressed lately. But what was all that garbage about you not being ‘worth it’?” He actually made quotation marks in the air with his fingers. “I’m going to assume that was your meds talking and ignore it. You’re my friend and you’re important to me and there’s nothing you can do about it.” He glared into the camera with such ferocity that Amos snorted. His amusement vanished when Prax continued: “Moving on. You mentioned the making-a-family-with-Djuna thing, so I’ll fill you in on what’s happening here...” 

As Prax kept talking, Amos’s scowl deepened, then changed to a look of perplexity. When the recording ended, he rubbed his newly-shaved head and said to no one in particular: “Well, that’s just fucking queer.”

Alex’s voice came over the comm panel on the wall. “Hey Amos, dinner’s ready.”

“On my way,” said Amos, sticking his terminal into his pocket.

***

The four of them sat around the table long after the last of the Thai basil chicken and rice had been eaten, leaving nothing behind but a lingering smell of fish sauce. One of the good things about a long-haul flight was that there was no rush to get back to their stations, leaving plenty of time to hang around and talk. 

Alex was telling a story about some stupid stunt he’d pulled when he was back in the MCRN. Amos waited until he was finished, laughing along with everyone else at all the right places. Then, before anyone could jump in with another yarn, he said: “Hey, does anyone want to see Doc’s latest message?”

“Ooh, what’s Plant Guy up to now?” said Naomi. “On he cutting edge of some supercharged carrots?”

“Just watch.” He cued up the message to where Prax started talking about Djuna, threw it to the galley screen so they could all see it, and hit play. Prax started talking mid-sentence:

“ - so Djuna’s run an idea by me - ”

“Hold up!” said Alex, and Amos paused the playback. “Who’s Djuna?”

“Mom of Mei’s best friend, Natalia.” Amos didn’t elaborate. He wanted them to form their own conclusions. Everyone seemed satisfied with that explanation, so he let the recording resume playing.

“ - and I hoped you and the others could tell me what you think. Djuna’s suggesting we look into a limited-term civil union, which is kind of like marriage, but with an expiration date. For our girls’ sakes, mostly. They’re already practically sisters. It would make our lives easier too - sharing the responsibilities, having another adult around to talk to, that kind of thing.

“It, uh, wouldn’t be a marriage in the traditional sense. I not sure if I mentioned it before, but Djuna’s wife died when the mirrors fell and I know she’s not over that yet. I don’t know if she ever will be. But she’s a good friend, and I like being around her, and she’s right - it would make things better for all of us if we joined forces. Her idea is that we set a ten-year term limit, which would put the girls at eighteen when it expires. We’d review the contract at that point and see if we want to renew it or not.” Prax rubbed his forehead and sighed. “It sounds solid, but it’s not something I’ve ever considered before, and I’d welcome an outside opinion. Plus I thought Captain Holden might have some good advice, considering his experiences growing up in an unconventional family unit.”

“That’s a nice way of putting it,” said Naomi, elbowing Holden in the ribs. He stuck his tongue out at her.

“Shh,” said Alex. “Doc’s not done.”

“...to get the wrong idea,” Prax was saying. “Djuna’s not pressuring me into anything. It’s simply an idea she presented as a possible solution to our mutual struggles with single parenthood. I’m only worried that I’m misjudging the situation - that I’ll mess it up like I did with Nicola.” He sighed again. “My confidence in my ability to read people correctly still hasn’t recovered from that debacle. Well. Let me know your thoughts. And thank you.”

Everyone looked at each other, waiting to see who would talk first. To no one’s surprise, it was Holden.

“If I can talk about my family without being assaulted - ”

“Go for it,” said Naomi, laughing. “You get a free pass this time.”

“Thanks a lot,” said Holden, saluting her. “My expert opinion is that the reason my parents’ co-op works so well is that they’ve always been upfront with each other about what their expectations are. Like, they’re all committed to each other, but not everyone in the group is romantically or sexually involved with everyone else.”

“So much more than we needed to know,” groaned Alex.

“Bear with me, guys. What I’m getting at is that this sounds like they’re going into it with the expectation that it’s going to be totally platonic. Am I right, Amos?”

“Fuck, I don’t know. This ain’t exactly my area of expertise,” said Amos, a little testily. This sort of talk was eroding his hard-won peace of mind.

“Fair enough. The point is, just about any arrangement can work, as long as their personalities don’t clash and their expectations are clear from the outset. Make sense?”

“Yeah,” said Naomi. “It does. Amos, you’ve been in touch with Doc more than the rest of us - what do you know about Djuna? Does she seem like a good fit for him?”

“Could be a gold-digger,” said Alex ominously. “Doc’s pretty well-off, isn’t he? Unless he’s spent it all on soybeans.”

“Nah, there’s grants and shit for that stuff,” said Amos. “He’s saving it for Mei. You know, for her meds. And her education.”

“He’s a good dad,” said Holden, nodding. “But is Djuna going to be a good mom?”

“She seems legit,” said Amos. “She’s a scientist too. Studies bacteria. Probably could’ve used her down on Ilus.”

“Being a scientist doesn’t mean you’re not a selfish prick,” said Alex. “Some of the worst people we’ve run into have been scientists.”

“Some of the best, too,” said Holden. 

“I think...” said Amos, and paused. He wanted to be fair. He thought about the things Prax had told him about Djuna, the way he sounded when he talked about her. Happy. That’s how he sounded. “I think she’s a good person, and he likes her.”

“Right. OK. Then it comes down to the expectations they have of each other. If they’re both clear on what they want and stick to it, there’s no reason it can’t work out. I mean, there’s an element of chance in every relationship - we can’t all be winners - ” he winked at Naomi, who grinned and kicked him under the table “ - but maybe second time’s the charm for Plant Guy and Bacteria Lady.”

“Gotta admit, it sounds good on paper,” said Alex. “But do they have clauses or somethin’ that account for - oh, I don’t know - one of ’em falling for a third party mid-contract?”

“Sure,” said Holden. “The contract will cover everything, if it’s written up by a halfway competent lawyer.”

“So what’s the verdict?” said Naomi. “What should Amos tell Doc?”

“I guess we can’t say for sure without knowing more about Djuna,” said Holden, “but we can at least tell him that it doesn’t strike us as completely crazy.”

“OK,” said Amos, getting up. “I’ll let him know.” He was feeling pretty good again. He’d made it through the conversation with only the faintest resurgence of his problem. He was finally able to separate the actual, living Dr. Praxidike Meng from the version in his head that had kept him company for so long - all right, that he still conjured up when he needed to unwind in his bunk or in the shower, but what was the harm in that? He’d shaken off the insidious idea that the two Praxes were connected, and that the real Prax might ever fulfill the role of the imaginary one. 

“Of course,” said Holden cheerfully, as Amos walked away, “there’s nothing to prevent them from falling in love later on down the road and making it permanent!”

“You old romantic,” said Naomi.

There didn’t seem to be anything to say to that, so Amos said nothing.

***

The next time a message from Prax came in, he didn’t open it right away. He stalled. He just wasn’t all that keen on hearing about the civil union ceremony and how great life was with Djuna and Natalia. Maybe he was being petty, but there it was. 

Eventually his curiosity got the better of him and he opened up the message. He grunted in surprise when Mei’s face appeared instead of Prax’s. He hadn’t seen her up close for a while - she was usually dashing past in the background, shouting a hi-and-bye greeting as she blew by - and he couldn’t believe how much older she looked. What was she now, seven? Eight? He was pretty sure he’d missed a birthday somewhere in the past few months. 

“Hi Amos!” she whispered, so close to the mic that the sibilants hissed loudly. “Nat and I are being spies! We have to sneak through the living room into the kitchen and steal some food without Dad and Djuna seeing us! Say hi, Nat.”

“Hi,” said another voice, and Mei swung the camera to show another girl around her own age. She had dark skin and her black hair was done into hundreds of little braids. She was grinning and waving. Then it was back to Mei. _Good thing I don’t get motion sickness._

“OK!” Mei went on, still whispering. “We’re going to try to make it from my room to behind the couch - they’re sitting on it so if we’re quiet they won’t see us!”

 _Pretty big “if,”_ thought Amos.

The video shook and jolted as the girls crept along, smothering their laughter. They stopped after a few seconds and Mei’s face appeared again. “We’re behind the couch! Nearly there!”

“I can almost taste the samosas!” whispered Natalia. Amos could hear the murmur of adult voices somewhere offscreen. One of the speakers was Prax, he could tell that much right off. He’d spent so much listening to his voice that he’d be able to pick him out of a crowd with his eyes shut. He tried to hear what was being said over the muffled giggles of the girls.

“...totally sure about this.” A woman. Probably Djuna, since Natalia was there.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Prax, sounding defensive.

“I thought you might have reservations because...you know.”

“No, I don’t know. Because of what?”

Djuna, speaking fast, like she was trying to get it over with. “Because of Amos Burton.”

 _What the fuck?_ Amos turned the volume up higher, but whatever Prax said was too quiet for the hand terminal to pick up. 

Mei was whispering again.

“I have to leave you here while we make our final approach, Amos. I’m going to need both hands to complete our mission. Be right back!” She set the terminal down. Now all he could see was the apartment ceiling and part of one wall. There was a shuffling noise that got fainter and fainter - the girls crawling away, presumably - and then, finally, he could hear what Prax and Djuna were saying.

“...if I’m being presumptuous.” Djuna. “But I couldn’t help observing the data and drawing conclusions from it.”

“What data would that be?” 

“Let’s see. There’s your level of commitment to sending messages to him, for starters. Next, your mood improves or deteriorates in direct proportion to how long it’s been since you heard from him; you made yourself ill with worry when you lost contact while he was on llus; and last but not least, you talk about him in your sleep.”

“I do _what_?”

“You talk about him in your sleep. Or rather, you talk _to_ him.”

Silence. Then Prax said: “Sweet Jesus.”

“Sweet Jesus,” echoed Amos.

Djuna chuckled. “Don’t worry. It’s nothing inappropriate. At least, the words themselves aren’t. The tone...well, you say his name a _lot._ ”

“Urrrgh...” Prax’s voice was muffled. Amos could picture him with his hands over his face.

“So,” said Djuna, “I concluded that you have strong feelings about Amos, but for whatever reason you are content to keep your relationship with him at its current level, based on your decision to enter into a partnership with another person. Namely, me. What do you think of my hypothesis?”

“I’m so sorry, Djuna,” said Prax, still muffled. “I’m sorry. I should have told you.”

“Prax. Weren’t you listening? You did tell me.”

“Are we...is it...over? Our partnership?”

“What? Why?”

“Well, because - because I have - strong feelings for someone else.”

“Are you planning to leave me and the girls and hop on board the _Rocinante_ at any point in the next ten years?”

“Um. No.” 

“Then we’ll be fine. I’m not interested in your ‘strong feelings,’ you goop. I thought I’d made that clear. I like you, and I respect you, and I trust you. I know you’ll be a good father to Mei and Nat and that we’ll work well together in our home. That’s all I ask. And maybe the occasional shoulder rub.”

Whatever Prax said next was drowned out by the return of Mei and Natalia, breathing hard and giggling. The video jiggled around for few seconds and then focused on the girls’ beaming faces. “Mission accomplished!” whispered Mei, holding up a handful of samosas. “Back to base!”

“Roger that, Captain Mei!” said Natalia.

They crawled back to Mei’s room and gleefully devoured the spoils of their expedition, reliving the highlights for Amos’s benefit before signing off. Normally he would have been vastly amused by the kids’ exploits, but today he could do nothing more than stare at the screen, listening to the blood _whooshing_ rhythmically in his ears.

_Fuck._

***

Long before Amos had finished digesting the two minutes of video that turned his head inside out, another message arrived. This one actually was from Prax.

“Uh, hi, Amos. Listen - sorry about that last thing from Mei. She knows she’s not supposed to play with my terminal, but I guess she and Nat got so caught up in their game that she accidentally-on-purpose forgot. Um. I watched it after she’d sent it and...” He was at it with the hair-rumpling again. “I’m so sorry. I never intended you to find out at all, and certainly not like that. I’m not - I’m - ah, _God!_ What a fucking mess.” Amos raised his eyebrows. Prax wasn’t usually much for bad language.

“Sorry. Sorry. I’m mortified. I like what we have going - had going? Oh, I hope it’s not past tense...look, I won’t ever bring it up, I swear. I never would have. If you would like to join me in pretending this whole thing never happened, I’d be unspeakably grateful. But if you can’t - if you need a - a break, or if you never want to talk to me again...I understand. OK. I’m going to shut up and send this before I overthink it any more than I already have.”

Amos took a couple of deep breaths. Then he went to work in the machine shop for a few hours. After that he hit the gym, took a shower, made dinner with Naomi and ate it with the rest of the crew, and went back to his cabin. He slumped into his crash couch with one hand behind his head and the other holding his terminal. He was finally ready to respond. _Or at least as ready as I’ll ever be._ His body was buzzing with adrenaline, like he was about to get into a fight. A fight would have been infinitely easier than this.

“Doc. It’s OK. You haven’t upset me or anything. I know you must be going through seven hells of embarrassment, but there’s no cause for it.” He paused, figuring out exactly how much he wanted to say. “I never was one for what you called ‘strong feelings,’ but I wouldn’t mind getting into your pants. There. Now we’ve both made our confessions. Don’t feel bad. We’ll keep on going like we were before. No harm, no foul. Say hello to Djuna and the girls for me.”

End recording. Send message. 

Just that easy.  


***

Prax didn’t get back to him for a couple of days, but Amos didn’t have much time to stew about it. Alex had decided that a year and a half of sleeping in and reading in their cabins would lead to dangerous levels of isolation, so he’d come up with a list of weekly group activities.

“Is this really necessary? We’ve got enough to do without adding extra stuff,” said Naomi, when Alex pitched the idea at breakfast. 

“Structure is important,” said Alex, all earnestness. “Routine is a necessary framework for living, especially on ship. We can’t just lie around with our thumbs up our butts for the next eighteen months. Right, Hoss?”

“Technically it’s only a year and five months now, but yeah, you’re right,” said Holden, not bothering to conceal his grin. 

“Poker night. Sounds good. But movie night?” said Amos, looking at the list that Alex had sent to everyone’s hand terminals. “We do that all the time anyway.”

“Yeah, but this will be different! Intentional, right? We all have to be there, and we’ll take turns choosing the show, and there’ll be popcorn and beer - ”

“Sold,” said Amos.

“Sounds like a great opportunity to be exposed to new stuff,” said Holden. “It’ll be very broadening, watching stuff we’d never pick left to ourselves.”

“Oh no you don’t,” said Naomi, narrowing her eyes. “I know what you’re thinking, James Holden. You’re dying to force us to watch your stupid vintage Earther shows.”

“Listen, we owe a lot to the kind of people who came up with _Star Trek_ , OK?”

“OK,” said Amos loudly, not interested in hearing this argument again. The captain’s love of twentieth- and twenty-first-century science fiction shows and movies, and Naomi’s equally deep disinterest in the same, was a long-standing bone of contention. “Next up: book club. How does that work?”

“We all read the same book and talk about it a few chapters at a time,” said Alex. “I’ve got discussion points and everything. I was thinking we could start with ‘The Martian.’ “

“Surprise, surprise,” said Holden, successfully deflected from defending the genius of Gene Roddenberry. 

“It’s a classic, Hoss! Required readin’ for all school-age Dusters, as it should be. Hey, Amos, you can invite Doc to join in too if he’s got time.”

“Doc? Why?”

“Because it’s about a kickass space botanist, that’s why! He’d appreciate it!”

“I just might do that.” _If we ever have the balls to talk to each other again, that is._

***

When Prax did send a message, it was an almost aggressively normal recording of himself pruning the devil’s ivy in the living room, Mei and Natalia practicing lines for a school play (they were a proton and neutron, respectively), and Djuna relating the epic of how she was nearly decapitated while trying to assemble the girls’ new bunk bed by herself. She had a dry sense of humor and a deadpan style of delivery that Amos had to admit was pretty damn likable. 

Amos replied with a recap of their first official movie night - Naomi’s pick. She’d gone with her favorite reality show, where contestants were dumped on a few busted ships and given 72 hours to fix them and get to a port. “It’s pretty cool, though they speak such thick Belter that we’ve got to use subtitles.” He also mentioned the book club. “I’ve never read ‘The Martian’ but Alex says there’s a kickass space botanist in it, so you’d probably like it, since you’re one too.”

Back and forth it went, like it had been before Ilus, before Djuna; like nothing had changed. But it had. There was always an undercurrent, an awareness that they had acknowledged that they were not, as the phrase went, “just friends.” But what could be done about it? Nothing. 

So time went on, and the _Roci_ flew though the strange stars. 

***

Sixteen months to go until they reached the inner Sol system. 

Mei turned nine, so the crew made a cake and sent her a video of themselves eating it and singing “Happy birthday.”

***

Fifteen months to go. 

Prax came up with a new and improved formula for the ship’s hydroponics system, and the galley herbariums grew so thick and fast that they had to start trimming and freezing the excess basil, parsley, cilantro, and thyme.

***

Thirteen months to go. 

The crew talent show (Alex’s brainchild, obviously) revealed all sorts of odd skills - Holden’s early brainwashing by his more literary parents meant that he could recite dozens of poems; Alex could juggle; Naomi could touch the back of her head with her foot; and Amos was the reigning champion of field-stripping and reassembling guns blindfolded. 

***

One year to go. 

Amos to Prax: “Turns out Star Trek is pretty entertaining. What I wouldn’t give for some of that tech! Warp speed? Hell yes. Though I’m more interested in why they can get away without any restraining harnesses and juice.

“Cap’s been a bit I-told-you-so about it, so we get our revenge by - well, have you ever seen any of it? There’s this one character in the originals - a doctor - and he’s always saying shit like ‘Dammit, Jim! I’m a doctor, not a scientist!’ Oh yeah, the captain’s name is Jim, which I refuse to believe isn’t a factor in Cap’s love of the show. Anyway. We quote that line to Cap all the time to piss him off. Like just yesterday I heard him saying something to Naomi - I didn’t catch what - but she said ‘Dammit, Jim, I’m your XO, not your therapist!’ And when he asked Alex whose turn it was to make dinner Alex was like ‘Dammit, Jim, I’m a pilot, not a secretary!’” He snorted with laughter. “Eh, maybe you had to be there.”

***

Ten months to go. 

Prax to Amos: “Mei and Nat’s science teacher has the whole class looking into the old theory that plants grow better when there’s music playing. The kids each have a tray of seedlings and instructions to keep particular styles of music playing beside them night and day. Fortunately it doesn’t have to be loud. Nat’s plants are in their room, with nonstop raï, and Mei’s are in the kitchen being barraged with opera.”

 

***

Eight months to go. 

Amos to Prax: “Karaoke night is the best. We pipe it right into Murtry’s cabin and turn the volume up all the way. Did you know Alex can yodel?”

***

Seven months to go. 

So far neither Amos nor Prax had broken their silence on strong feelings, talking in one’s sleep, or wanting to get into anyone’s pants. Amos thought about it, though. He thought about it a lot. He wondered if Prax did, too. What would happen if he tried flirting a little? He wasn’t bad at it - it was an almost reflexive response whenever he was around someone he found attractive - but he wasn’t sure how to go about it with some one he gave a shit about. Not to mention that they were separated by a healthy chunk of time and space. But he’d been told by more than one person that the sight of his bare arms was enough to move things in a friendly direction, so he made a recording right after a session in the gym, which gave him a legitimate reason to be shirtless. 

“Gotta polish the guns,” he told Prax, shamelessly flexing for the camera. “Like there’s anything else to do. Eat, sleep, movie night, book club, poker night, karaoke, make sure the ship holds together so we don’t asphyxiate and die...OK, so there’s plenty to do. But exercise keeps me from feeling gross. I used to not have to worry about it, but these days I’ve got to put a little effort in to stay in fighting trim. Especially now that Alex is hooked on cooking shows. The man’s got a gift for making food dispenser fare into something special.”

Prax didn’t say anything one way or the other about Amos’s blatant preening, but he did talk about exercise in general. “I don’t really have a regular routine and I know I should. I mean, what if something bad happens again? I’d like to have a bit more in my reserve tank, you know? I’d like to be stronger. Faster. Better able to defend myself and my family.”

Amos gave him some advice on what exercises to try and how often, what to eat more and less of, and sent him the links to some free fitness and self-defense programs. His vague hopes of receiving recordings of a sweaty, half-naked Prax didn’t come to fruition, but he did have the satisfaction of seeing Prax gradually fill out and look healthier than he’d ever seen him. 

***

Six months to go.

Amos got drunker than usual at poker night, locked himself in his cabin, and made a recording of himself explaining the origin and significance of every one of his tattoos, including the one of Lydia. 

***

Five months to go. 

The Ring was approaching fast. Medina Station waited for them on the other side of the slow zone. “We’re going to stop to replenish a few supplies, then head for Luna to drop off the scumbag before going to Tycho to get our girl properly repaired. She’s ready for some hard-core TLC.” He shook his head. “I know I’ve been flying too long when four months sounds like a short ride.”

“I bet you’ll be glad to stretch your legs at Medina,” said Prax in his response, which only took a couple hours to reach him now instead of five. “Are you going to have time to...relax?”

Amos pondered this for a while, wondering if it was an indirect way of asking if he’d be hitting up the brothels as usual. The thought that Prax cared if he did or not was intriguing. The fact was, for the first time in his adult life, Amos wasn’t planning to indulge in his typical shore-leave spree. This was partly because he’d been taking care of business on his own far more regularly than he’d ever done before; it turned out that having a specific person to picture while he did it made it a lot more fun. 

The other part was harder to explain to himself, let alone to Prax. Somehow, the idea of boinking some random hooker seemed...disloyal. _Don’t be stupid,_ he’d argued with himself, while remembering the attractions of Medina’s red-light district. _You’re not **with** him. He’s got no claim on you, nor you on him._ But the sense that pursuing his usual course of action would be a betrayal was so strong that he stopped thinking about it, and shifted his anticipatory daydreams to bars, casinos, and sushi buffets instead.

“Not really,” he said to his camera. “We’re gonna keep it short and sweet.”

Prax was particularly cheerful in his next message, and told some funny stories about Mei’s birthday party (which had come around for the second time since they left Ilus). Amos’s response was equally light-hearted, as he related how he’d gone up to ops one day to find Holden reading poetry to Naomi. 

“I mean he was literally sitting at her feet, Doc,” said Amos, grinning. “You should’ve seen their faces when they noticed my big bald head poking up through the hatchway! I was laughing so hard I nearly fell off the ladder. Seriously, what did they expect, pulling that sort of shit in ops? It’s not like they don’t have a cabin of their own.”

“I think it’s sweet,” was Prax’s opinion, when Amos had time to listen to it later. “What poem was he reading to her?”

Amos didn’t know, so he went to find out.

“Why do you care?” said Naomi, when he asked her about it.

“Doc was curious.”

“Oh God, you told him about _that_?”

“Why not? It’s fucking hilarious!”

“Fine, fine. I actually have no idea. Hang on.” She pulled out her hand terminal and called Holden. “Hey, Jim?”

“What’s up?” came Holden’s voice.

“What was the name of that poem you were reading to me when Amos walked in on us?”

“Why? Want to hear it again?”

“No, you idiot, I just need to know what it’s called. Amos is asking.”

“Why the hell does he need to know? Forget it, I’m not giving him any more ammunition to use against me. My fragile ego can’t take it.”

“C’mon, Cap, cough up,” said Amos, leaning close to Naomi’s terminal. “It’s nothing to do with you. Doc was curious, that’s all.” 

“Doc? How did he find out? Did you make a system-wide broadcast of the event or something?”

“Nah, mass broadcasts are your thing, not mine.”

“Good one,” said Naomi.

“Whatever. It was ‘To His Coy Mistress,’ by Andrew Marvell. That’s M-a-r-v-e-l-l. Satisfied?”

“Yep. Got it. Thanks, Cap, you’re a good sport.”

“Piss off.”

“I love you too,” said Naomi, laughing. 

“Thanks, Boss,” said Amos, flipping her a salute and heading for the crew ladder. She stopped him with a hand on his arm.

“Hey, Amos...I don’t want to get up in your business, but...are all you right with this whole Prax thing? Or do I need to give him the airlock talk?”

“The what now?”

“You know - traditionally delivered by the father or older brother of whoever’s getting courted - like, ‘treat my kid right or I’ll chuck you out an airlock.’ ”

“Oh. Earthers call it the ‘shovel talk,’ I think. You know, implying that they’ll kill you and bury you in the back yard.”

“Same same,” said Naomi, shrugging her hands. “But you do hear what I’m saying, right?” 

“You’re saying that...you’re going threaten to space Doc if he doesn’t get me home on time?”

Naomi shoved him. “Don’t be stupid. I’ve been trapped in this tin can with you for over a year, Amos, and I know that you’ve got something going on with Prax.”

“We don’t - ” began Amos, not sure what exactly he was going to say next ( _we don’t have anything going on, we don’t have a hope in hell of making it work for real_ ), but before he could decide what to deny Naomi was talking again.

“I’ve never seen you like this before. With anyone. You care about him, and not just because he’s Mei’s father. You tell him everything - what’s books you’re reading, what movies we’re watching, what you made for dinner - every little thing that happens, you tell him, and apparently he wants to hear it. You record messages to him while you’re in the gym, for God’s sake. This is not standard practice for friendships and you know it.”

Amos folded his arms. “You’re an observant one, huh?”

“Yes I am, but even if I wasn’t I’d have to be pretty dim not to have realized that something’s going on. You’re not very subtle, you know.”

“Never was my strong point.”

“What I want to know is, are you going to sack up and go talk to him?”

“I thought you’d just established that I do nothing _but_ talk to him.”

“I mean go to Ganymede and talk to him for real.” She stepped closer. “Or are you too scared?”

“I fucking should be. I can’t do it, Naomi. You know I can’t. I’m...I don’t _get_ that kind of shit. Plus he’s practically married and I’m no homewrecker.”

“Amos. He’s in a non-sexual relationship of convenience for a limited period of time. That is not the same as being married. And,” she lifted a finger to forestall his next burst of protests, “I would not be a bit surprised if you’re the reason for that. But you’re not going to find out unless you ask him, and that’s the kind of thing that should be asked face to face. No lag, no editing.”

Amos stared at her. A dozen different responses chased themselves around his head, ranging from _What’s wrong with what we’ve got going on right now?_ to _Are you fucking crazy?_ But his answer came from somewhere else - definitely not his head.

“You’re right,” he said. “I’ll go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Congratulations on making it to the end of this ridiculously huge chapter! If you have any strength left I’d love to hear your reaction! <3 <3 <3


	3. Prax

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Guess who’s coming to dinner?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well. This chapter makes the last one look short by comparison, so...there’s that. Also I’m not entirely sure it justifies the “T” rating but I’m going with it to be safe. 
> 
> There are spoilers for “Abaddon’s Gate,” “Cibola Burn,” and “Nemesis Games.”
> 
> I blame any typos and/or egregious errors on sheer exhaustion. There’s only so many times you can proofread something this long.

Prax’s hand terminal buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out, swore under his breath when he saw that he had an incoming call from Mei and Natalia’s teacher, and tapped the green “accept” button. 

“Mrs. Thankachen!” he said, arranging his face into an appropriately contrite expression. “I’m sorry I’m late - there was a delay on the tube line. I’ll be there in - ” he checked the scrolling feed over the compartment door “ - four minutes.”

“No problem, Dr. Meng,” said Mrs. Thankachen, in her Mariner Valley drawl. “That’s not actually why I called. Everything’s fine,” she assured him, no doubt seeing the panic in his eyes. “I only wanted to let you know that there’s a man in the pickup area who says he’s a friend of your family, but I don’t recognize him.”

Prax’s stomach turned to ice. “ _Where’s Mei?_ ”

“Don’t worry, she’s right here. It does seem likes she knows this guy - she’s going crazy, jumping up and down and - well, you can probably hear her.”

Now that she mentioned it, he could. The coldness in his stomach vanished in a rush of molten shock and excitement when he realized what Mei was shouting: “ _HEY IT’S ME! IT’S PUMPKIN!_ ”

“Could I see this man?” Prax asked, struggling to keep his voice steady. _It can’t be. There’s no way._

Mrs. Thankachen shifted the camera so that Prax could see through the plexiglass partition that separated the classrooms from the pickup area. There was the mountainous figure of Amos Burton, sitting placidly in a blue plastic chair while parents and students gave him curious looks and a wide berth. He was grinning and waving, presumably at Mei.

“Yes,” said Prax, the word coming out as a whisper. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Yes, I know him. It’s OK, you can let Mei and Nat out. I’ll be right there. Thank you for checking with me.”

“All right, Dr. Meng,” said Mrs. Thankachen, sounding dubious. “Natalia? Mei? You can - settle down, Mei! - you can go on out, girls.” Prax heard one last whoop from Mei before the connection broke.

He put his terminal away, his heart racing. _What is he **doing** here? Where’s the rest of the crew?_ Before he could form any theories, the tube swayed to a stop and the doors opened. He edged through the press of commuters and hurried along the wide halls of colored ice that led to the girls’ school.

“Dad!” shouted Mei, as soon as he came in. She was upside down. Amos was standing now, holding her by the ankles while Natalia hooted with laughter on the sidelines. “Look, look, Amos is here!”

“I can see that,” said Prax, his smile so wide that he thought his face might split. All his worries about meeting Amos for the first time in years were washed away by a deep sense of _everything’s-all-right._ “Amos, it’s great to - ” he began, extending a hand in greeting and having it instantly engulfed in Amos’s massive grip.

“Doc! There you are! Surprised to see me?” said Amos, giving Prax’s hand (and half his forearm) a nerve-numbing squeeze.

“Mei’s face is turning purple!” observed Natalia.

“So it is,” said Amos, letting go of Prax so that he could use both hands to lower Mei gently to the floor. “There you go, pumpkin. A-OK?”

“Yep!” said Mei, looking dazed but delighted. Prax helped her to her feet, smoothed her hair, and said to Amos:

“How did you get here? I thought the _Roci_ was at Tycho Station!”

“Keeping tabs on me, huh?” said Amos with a wink. Prax’s knees turned to water. “Yeah, the _Roci_ ’s going to be parked for a while. Poor girl needs an overhaul. That means we’re all on extended shore leave, so I thought I’d come by.”

“Well, we are very glad to see you,” said Prax, picturing _Understatement Of The Century_ flashing over his head in neon lights. _I’ve been watching too many cartoons with the girls._

“Amos, this is Natalia!” said Mei, dragging Nat forward. “You haven’t seen her in real life before, but she’s my sister now!”

Amos shook hands with her gravely. “Nice to meet you, Natalia.”

“You can call me Nat,” she said, with a gap-toothed grin. 

Mei had had enough of the formalities. “Let’s go, let’s go! Amos, you’re coming with us, right?”

“That’s the plan - if that’s OK with you, Doc.”

“Oh yes. You’re more than welcome! How long can you stay?”

“Not sure. A few days at least. Maybe more, depending.”

Prax didn’t ask _depending on what?_. Instead he turned to the girls. “Do you have your homework? Good. Come on, we’re blocking the pickup area.”

Amos reached under the chair he’d been sitting in and pulled out a small duffel bag. “Where to?” he said, slinging it over his shoulder.

“Home,” said Prax. “But I have to stop and get a few things for dinner on the way.”

“Lead on!”

***

Prax often felt like an observer of his own life - as though he stood a little apart from it, watching things happening to someone else. Nicola, back when she cared enough to criticize him, had said that he was intentionally distancing himself to protect himself from getting hurt. Personally, he thought it was a side effect of spending so many years studying plants; it seemed natural to study everything else, including his own self and surroundings, in the same way.

Today the sensation of watching himself from the outside was more pronounced than ever. He felt like he was a fifth person in the group, watching himself, Mei, Nat, and Amos walk down the corridors, ride the tube, and get out at the market center. He watched as he gave Mei and Nat permission to take Amos to the common park area in the middle of the market; watched the girls showing off on the climbing wall and the jungle gym; watched Amos cheering them on. It was all so close to the fantasies he’d indulged in that he had trouble accepting what he saw as reality. 

He was brought back to himself by the chime of his hand terminal. Djuna was calling. “Hey,” he said, stopping between a noodle cart and a roasted-maize-on-a-stick vendor. “What’s up?”

“Where are you?” said Djuna. He could see their kitchen cupboards in the background; she was home, then. Her weekly staff meeting must have let out early. “I thought you’d be home by now! Did you forget to pick up the girls?”

“No, no, they’re right here with me. We stopped at the market.”

“Forgot some stuff?”

“Not _forgot_ , per se. More like _needed extra._ We have an unexpected guest.”

Djuna looked resigned. “Not that freeloading graduate assistant of Dr. Crowder’s again?”

“It’s - you’re not going to believe this. _I_ can hardly believe it. Amos is here.”

“ _What_? Amos _Burton_? Here-here? On Ganymede?”

“I’m looking at him right now. He’s with the girls at the playground.” 

“Oh. My. God. Oh my GOD! Are you serious? He’s coming for dinner? Is he staying over? I have to get the guest room ready! What are we having for dinner again?”

“Pot stickers, but Djuna - ”

She was moving around the apartment now, heading for the room that served as their shared home office when not in use by a visitor. “We’ll have to triple the recipe. Maybe quadruple it.”

“How much do you think he eats?”

“I don’t know, but he’s huge, isn’t he? Better to have too much food than too little!”

“Fine. We’ll quadruple it. I’ll get another pack of wrappers and some more protein, celery, and mushrooms. We’ve got everything else at home.”

“Yes. Yes. You’re right. Be calm.”

“I am calm!”

“I was talking to myself.” The image on the screen shook and there was a prolonged scraping noise.

“What are you doing now, woman?”

“Pushing my desk against the wall to make more space. Hey, does he like baklava? I picked some up for dessert.”

“I don’t know. Most people do.”

“Well, if he doesn’t, we’ve got ice cream in the freezer. It’s fine! Everything’s fine! Just take your time getting home. I want to straighten things up a bit.”

“Djuna, he’s not going to care - dammit.” She’d already dropped the connection. He’d been been worried that Djuna might be stressed out by Amos’s sudden appearance, but she seemed more excited than worried. He only wished he could say the same. His initial euphoria had faded, leavning him anxious and wondering.

“Hey,” said Amos, making him jump. “Sorry! Didn’t mean to startle you. The girls are still playing, but I saw you talking on your terminal - you looked a little peeved. Everything OK? I know it was rude of me to show up out of the blue like this.”

“No! Not at all,” said Prax. “It’s a wonderful surprise.” Another understatement.

“Listen, I’m not expecting you to put me up. I’ll crash at a flophouse. I just wanted to see you. I guess I should have called first, huh? I’ve never really gone visiting before. Is Djuna mad?”

“Are you kidding? She’s thrilled. The only thing she’ll be mad about is if you don’t stay with us, so don’t even mention crashing at a flophouse in front of her, OK?”

“How about dinner? What can I buy?”

“Amos, you’re our guest, don’t be ridiculous.”

“I’m serious. Let me. I haven’t had anything to spend money on for ages.”

“Well - all right. If you really want to. There are a few more things I need to get.” Prax hailed the girls, who came running to join them.

Walking through the crowds, holding Mei and Natalia’s hands while Amos carried the groceries, was so intensely domestic that Prax felt his sinuses tingling as a precursor to tears. Never had he let himself believe that this could happen, and yet here they were, heading home to make dinner together as if it was the most natural thing in the world. He was thankful for the girls’ presence. They kept up a stream-of-consciousness commentary about everything they passed, so he didn’t have to make conversation. God only knew what kind of an idiot he’d be making of himself if he had to talk to Amos alone right now, when he was still reeling from the simple fact that he was _here._

The feeling of unreality dissipated as the minutes went by and Amos continued to exist. 

Amos was there as they filled the shopping bag with mushrooms, dumpling wrappers, and (at his insistence) two pounds of ground vat-grown pork. 

Amos was there when they rented a cart and drove home, the girls singing their favorite pop song loudly and off-key from the back seat.

Amos was there when Djuna opened the apartment door and stood back to let them in, beaming.

Amos was there in the kitchen, standing across from Prax at the island, wearing a blue-and-white striped apron and submitting to Mei and Natalia’s instructions on how to assemble the dumplings.

“Not too much filling,” said Mei. “Only a couple of teaspoons, or it’ll split open.”

“Like this?”

“Much better!” said Nat. “Now dip your finger in the water-bowl and run it long the edges, fold the wrapper over, and press hard to seal it.”

Amos held up a little triangle of thin dough wrapped around the mushroom-pork filling. “Good enough, boss?”

Mei and Natalia looked at it critically. “Good enough,” said Mei.

“It’ll get easier the more you do it,” Nat assured him. Prax caught Djuna’s eye and they shared a smile, recognizing one of their standard phrases of encouragement that they used when the girls were learning something new.

Amos’s big, blunt fingers were surprisingly deft ( _I suppose he must be used to working with tiny wires and circuits all the time on the ship,_ thought Prax, deliberately turning his thoughts away from dwelling on other things that those fingers might be good at), and it wasn’t long before he was keeping up with the girls to their satisfaction.

“Done - and in record time!” said Prax, when they had used up all the filling. “Thanks for helping, Amos.”

“No problem. I like cooking.”

“It won’t take me long to steam these,” said Djuna, drizzling oil into a pan on the stove. “Mei, can you and Nat get the dipping sauce mixed?”

Dinner was a success, with piles of crisp-bottomed dumplings, salty dipping sauce, and sticky white rice for everyone. Amos consumed an astonishing amount of food, and Prax was glad he’d let Djuna talk him into making so much.

When the leftovers had been put away and the dishes washed, Amos plunked his duffel bag on the table and announced that it was time for presents.

“You didn’t have to bring gifts!” said Prax, over the girls’ excited squeals.

“Hell yes I did,” countered Amos, unzipping the bag and rummaging around inside it. “I showed up with no warning and invited myself to dinner. I definitely had to bring gifts so you don’t kick me out on my - here we go!” He took out two cardboard boxes, about six inches long and slightly squashed, and gave one to each of the girls.

“Can we open them right now?” said Mei.

“Go for it, pumpkin.”

Prax and Djuna watched with undisguised interest as the girls opened their boxes and revealed -

“What _is_ it?” said Nat, holding hers up. “It looks like some kind of lizard!”

“It is,” said Amos. “It’s a model of one of the mimic lizards that live on Ilus.”

“Cooool,” said Mei, turning hers over in her hands and running her fingers along its wide head. “They really look like this?”

“Yep. About twice as big, though. Pull down on the tail.”

Both of the girls did so, and shrieked as something shiny and pink shot out of the lizards’ mouths.

Mei dropped hers on the table. “Eww! What just happened?”

Amos was laughing. “It’s the way mimic lizards catch their food - they shoot their stomachs out like that so that whatever they’re hunting sticks right to ‘em and gets pulled back in.”

“Stomach eversion as a predatory technique?” said Djuna. “That’s - ”

“Dis-GUS-ting!” said Natalia appreciatively. 

Mei picked her lizard back up and lifted the tail, which made the stomach retract. “Awesome!” She and Nat instantly engaged in a lizard-stomach-shooting duel.

“Where did you get those?” asked Prax, raising his voice to be heard over the commotion.

“Had ’em made on Tycho. 3D printers will make a model of anything you can imagine.”

“Girls!” said Djuna. “Take your lizards to your room if you’re going to be this loud, please!”

“Now for the grownups,” said Amos, as the girls complied. “Here, Djuna.” He handed her a bottle swathed in bubble wrap. She unwound it carefully.

“Oh, a bottle of wine! How thoughtf- ” She broke off mid-gush with a gasp and held up the bottle so that Prax could see the label. He leaned over to take a closer look.

“A red Chianti from - from Tuscany? Tuscany, _Italy_? On _Earth_?”

“Made of real Earth grapes, air, water, and sunshine,” said Amos, who was laughing again.

Djuna was the closest to speechless that Prax had ever seen her. Finally she came out with: “How can you ever expect me to drink this, you crazy man? It must have cost a fortune!”

“I keep trying to explain, I’ve had nothing to spend my money on for, like, two years,” said Amos, clearly enjoying himself. “Don’t spoil my fun.”

Djuna went over to Amos, and kissed his bearded cheek. “In that case, all I can say is ‘thank you.’ I will treasure this, and hope that someday there’s an occasion special enough for me to open it.”

 _Is he actually blushing?_ wondered Prax, and was filled with a sudden fondness for both Amos and Djuna, and great thankfulness that he had two such people in his life.

“Now for Doc!” Amos went on, shaking off his momentary bashfulness and reaching back into his bag. “I didn’t exactly buy this, but...here.” He pulled out a stack of what looked like thin, flat, transparent boxes and passed them to Prax, who took them and spread them out on the table in front of him. His heartbeat quickened. He recognized the boxes, of course - they were biomatter specimen cases, he’d used them to preserve and transport botanical samples almost every day of his career - but what was in them? They looked like plants, but not like any plant that he’d ever seen. The ones in the nearest case were corrugated, iridescent -

“Are these what I think they are?” he breathed, lifting one of the cases and holding it up to the light.

“That depends. Do you think they’re bits of the weird shit that grows on Ilus? Because if so, you’re absolutely right.”

“How - _how_ did you get these?”

“Well, as you may recall, I was there for quite a while, Doc. I grabbed a few leaves here and there and Elvi was nice enough to give me some of her sample boxes. I stuck ’em in my gun bag and kinda forgot about it until I got back to the _Roci._ ”

“These are the first physical specimens to come back from Ilus!” marveled Prax, turning another box over in his hands. “Why didn’t you ever mention that you had these?”

“I figured it’d be kinder not to tell you, since I had no idea when I’d see you again. It’s not like I could mail them to you.”

Prax, shuffling through the stack of cases, was only half listening. “No one’s going to believe this! I can’t wait to get these to the lab...”

Djuna nudged him. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

“Don’t worry, there’s no need for him to give me a kiss,” said Amos, grinning. “Not yet, anyway.”

Prax was the one turning red now. “Amos, thank you. This is - I’m overwhelmed.”

“You’re welcome,” said Amos, and his voice was so soft that Prax looked away, completely unable to think of a response.

Djuna rescued him by saying briskly: “All right then! Time for dessert!” which brought the girls running.

When everyone had had as much baklava and ice cream as they wanted, the adults moved to the living room area so that Mei and Nat could do their homework at the table. 

Prax was struggling with a resurgence of the feeling of incongruity that had stuck him so forcibly in the market, so Djuna and Amos did most of the talking. The conversation was about opera, of all things - a topic inspired by the random mix of family favorites playing over the speakers. Amos brightened up when the Flower Duet from Lakmé came on. “Hey, I love this song!” 

“Really? I wouldn’t have pegged you as an opera lover, to be honest,” said Djuna.

“I like loud noises. You should hear it when I crank it all the way up in the _Roci_ \- if I get the frequency right the whole hull hums. It’s Mei’s fault, really - you know how she kept playing it during that plant experiment a while back? It was in the background of so many of Doc’s messages that I got to like it, and started listening to it on my own. ”

“You’re welcome!” called Mei from the table.

“Yes, good work, Mei,” said Djuna. “How’s the spelling list going?”

“I’m almost done.”

“I’m _already_ done,” said Natalia, putting down her pen with a flourish.

“Good. Do you have a favorite singer, Amos?”

“Yeah, that mezzo-soprano from Kenya - what’s her name - Mwana Uba. She’s got quite a set of pipes.”

“Have you heard her in ‘Salome’?”

“I have - and have you seen the production the Mars Academy of the Arts did on their zero-g theatre? Fucking life-changing.”

All Prax could do was sit in silence. _How can a person be so familiar and yet a stranger?_ he wondered. _I’ve spent years talking to this man about anything and everything - including opera - and now here he is in my living room, and I’m frozen. If I could move, I’d be able to reach over and touch him, he’s that close._ Thanks to a particular few of Amos’s messages, he knew what scars and tattoos lay beneath his jumpsuit, the exact color of his space-pale skin - yet he couldn’t find the courage to make more than the most inconsequential remark. _Thank God that Djuna’s here to take up the slack._

It was at this point that he realized that Amos and Djuna had stopped talking and were looking at him. Evidently he’d missed something. “Er - sorry. What was that?”

Djuna smiled. “I was saying that I know you boys have a lot of catching up to do, so we’ll get going now.”

“Where to?” said Amos, sounding politely interested.

“Yes, where to?” repeated Prax, hoping he too sounded politely interested despite his fear that he might be having a heart attack.

“You know that spa hotel that opened up where the old water reservoir used to be? I’ve been wanting to try it, and this is the perfect excuse for a girls’ night.”

Mei and Nat perked up. “Girls’ night?” said Natalia. “Us too?”

“That’s right. Go pack your pajamas, toothbrushes, and clothes for tomorrow. We’ll come back in the morning so you can get your school things.”

Whooping with delight, the girls gathered up their homework and scampered down the hall, shoving each other in their efforts to be first through the door to their room, where they could be heard shouting things like “This is the best day EVER” and “What did you do with my polka-dot PJs? I left them right there on the floor!”

Chuckling at the girls’ enthusisam, Djuna went to the bedroom that she and Prax shared. Prax got up too, nodded idiotically at Amos (who looked entirely at ease in his chair as he started in on his third piece of baklava), and went after Djuna in a state of barely suppressed panic. “Are you sure about this?” he said, as soon as the door closed behind them. “I mean, it’s a school night, and you have work tomorrow.”

“Don’t worry about it. We’ll be back in plenty of time.“

“I just don’t want you to feel like you’re being kicked out - ”

“Hush,” said Djuna, patting his cheek. “You need to make the most of this time, all right? Amos has done a brave thing, coming here. Now you need to be brave too.”

“But what if - _that_ sort of thing - is not why he’s here at all? What if - what if he only wants to visit?”

“Then visit! Have fun watching movies and drinking all the beer in the fridge! But you’ll never know if you sit there like a bump on a log. Anyway, I wouldn’t worry if I were you. He showed up with wine and - well, not roses exactly, but plant matter. He’s here for _you_ , make no mistake. I’ll see you in the morning, Prax.” She picked up her overnight bag - which she’d apparently packed as soon as she found out Amos was coming over - and left the room.

And just like that - far more quickly than they ever managed to get out the door when heading to school or work - the girls were gone, and Prax was alone with Amos.

He took refuge in his duty as a host. “You must be tired. Would you like to take a shower or something?”

“That’d be great,” said Amos. “I haven’t washed up properly for a couple of days. The head on the transport over here was a bit on the manky side.”

“There should be a bed set up for you in here,” said Prax, going to look in the guest room. Sure enough, Djuna had taken care of everything. The desks were tidied and pushed against the wall to make space for the fold-down bed, which had been freshly made. There was even a diffuser in the corner, busily puffing the faint scent of lemongrass into the air. _Damn, she is thorough._ “Yes, it’s all set.”

“Great. Won’t be long,” said Amos, picking up his bag and disappearing into the bathroom.

Prax sat down - or rather, collapsed - at the foot of the guest bed. _Deep, slow breaths. In through the nose, out through the mouth._ He closed his eyes and concentrated on breathing until he felt a little less like running in circles and screaming. Then he went to the kitchen to have a beer.

He had just finished the bottle when the shower turned off. That meant Amos would be toweling himself dry ( _don’t think about that don’t think about that_ ) and would soon rejoin him. What should he do then? Should he take a shower too? Normally he would at this time of day, but he didn’t want to seem like he was showering because...well...for any special, totally hypothetical reason. 

_But is it hypothetical? He’s here, isn’t he? Why is he here? Oh God why is he here, what does he want, does he want **that**? Do I? Jesus wept. I do._

Amos walked out of the bathroom wearing sweat pants and a t-shirt that said _I Survived Ilus/New Terra And All I Got Was This Fucking T-Shirt_. Prax couldn’t help laughing at that.

“Classy, right?” said Amos, grinning. “Some guys on the _Edward Israel_ made these on the trip back and gave us a few when we all got to Luna. Naomi says it’s in bad taste so I’m sure it is - but it’s funny as hell.”

“I’m, uh, I’m going to rinse off too,” said Prax. “I’ll be out in five minutes. There’s beer in the fridge if you want any.”

“Sweet! Thanks. Take your time. I”m not going anywhere.”

With that ( _ominous? promising?_ ) statement ringing in his ears, Prax went to take a shower.

He emerged somewhat more than five minutes later wearing a light cotton shirt and trousers - his usual after-work attire. Amos was reclining on the guest bed with a beer in one hand and his eyes shut. “Feel better?” Amos inquired, when Prax came in.

“I do,” said Prax, a little surprised by how true this was. _Another example of the tyranny of the body over the mind._

“Me too. Hot water is a great thing.” Amos cracked an eye open and looked at him. “Thanks for this, by the way.”

“ ‘This’ being what, exactly?” said Prax, leaning against the edge of his desk in what he hoped was a casual way.

“For not freaking out when I showed up out of nowhere. For feeding me some really fucking good food. For letting me into your home.”

“Amos. Seriously. It’s a pleasure.” Prax rubbed the back of his still-damp head, wishing he could talk to Amos as easily in person as he could on video. “I’ve imagined this, you know. Having you right here so we could talk like normal people. And now that you’re here, I can’t think of anything to say.”

Amos’s laugh rumbled deep in his chest. “Good.”

“Good?”

“I mean, I’m glad I’m not the only one feeling a little awkward.”

“Oh.” Amos didn’t _look_ awkward. He looked totally relaxed, watching Prax with candid eyes. Prax tried not to fidget under his gaze. After about thirty seconds of silence he was about to go get another beer simply to have something to do when Amos spoke.

“I’ve got an idea.”

“Oh? What is it?”

“Let’s record messages to each other.”

Again, Prax was startled into laughter. “What?”

“Hell, why not? It’ll break the ice. We don’t have to do real recordings - we can sit back to back on the floor and pretend we’re talking into our hand terminals. Just like usual.” Amos slid off the bed, sat on the strip of floor between the bed and the door, and grinned up at Prax. “C’mon down, Doc.”

Floundering between amusement and reluctance, Prax lowered himself to the floor and crossed his legs. Amos shifted so that their backs pressed together and Prax closed his eyes, soaking in the solid warmth. _Oh God. I missed him so much._

“I’ll start, I guess, since this was my idea,” said Amos. “Switching on my imaginary camera now...so... hey, Doc. It’s me. We docked at Tycho a few days ago, after offloading the asshole on Luna. The _Roci_ needs an overhaul - we really put our girl through the wringer. She’s going to be out of commission for six months. So we’re all pretty much doing our own thing till she’s fixed. I wanted to see you, so I hopped on a transport and came over. I guess I should have called ahead to ask if it was OK. It didn’t occur to me. I’m used to doing shit without talking it over with anyone first. Cap’s still trying to break me of that.”

“I envy you your nerve,” said Prax. “Sorry - I didn’t mean to interrupt. When I’m listening to your actual recordings I kind of - talk back to them.”

“I think everyone does that,” said Amos. “I do, anyway. But it’s not that I’m brave. I just don’t get scared.”

“Lucky.”

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you? It can come in handy - I don’t second-guess myself in a fight - but it’s not always great. I do things that I shouldn’t because I don’t have that fear to warn me.”

“That’s true. I hadn’t thought of that. Kind of like leprosy.”

“Isn’t that a skin disease?”

“It is, but it also affects the nerves. Deadens them to pain. Which again sounds like a good thing, but results in injuries going unnoticed and hence untreated, so that they become far worse than they otherwise would...” He stopped, appalled at the words coming out of his mouth. _Real smooth, Prax. Way to compare the emotional and psychological issues if the man you love to a hideously disfiguring disease. Good move._ “Oh God. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to call you a leper or anything.” 

Amos didn’t seem offended. If anything, he was intrigued. “Hey, that’s a good comparison. I bet lepers had to be real careful about not getting wounded by accident, right?”

“I would imagine so.”

“Yeah. I gotta be careful too. It’s not hard for me to get into bad shit because it doesn’t scare me, so I have to pay close attention to what I’m doing.” He was quiet for a moment, apparently thinking this over. Then he carried on as if nothing out of the ordinary had been said. “Anyway - when I landed on Ganymede I saw that the time stationside was about when pumpkin’s school lets out” ( _It was months ago when I mentioned that! I cannot believe he remembers that level of detail,_ thought Prax) “so I figured out where it was and caught the tube there.” He laughed, and Prax felt the vibration through his whole body. “I told the teacher I was a friend of the family but she didn’t buy it - can’t really blame her. I sure was glad when you showed up. You looked glad to see me, but a little shellshocked. Understandable. It must’ve been quite a surprise.”

“A good one,” said Prax. Again came the rumble of Amos’s infrasonic chuckle, and he went on:

“Mei’s so big! I can’t get over it. I mean I know I’ve seen her on video a lot but it’s not the same. She’s so happy and smart...and loved. I hope she knows how lucky she is.” He paused. “No, I take that back. I hope she never knows. I hope she can always take it for granted because it’s just _like_ that for her.” Amos’s tone was still matter-of-fact, but Prax’s eyes were getting watery. He wiped them on the back of one hand and hoped he wasn’t being too obvious about it.

“So yeah,” Amos continued, “after I met Nat we all went to get some more stuff for dinner, because you’re too polite to come right out and say that some fucking idiot invited himself over and you don’t think you have enough food for him - ”

Prax snorted.

“ - and because I’m not a complete animal I picked up the tab. Dinner was fantastic, by the way. You guys should open a restaurant.”

“Thanks.”

“I handed out presents, had a nice chat with Djuna, and now the ladies have very tactfully gone away to give us some privacy, and I’m damned if I know what to do with it. I mean, we can’t even talk to each other without pretending to be recording messages, and...shit. How am I supposed to tell you that I want to touch you and never stop touching you?”

Prax sat very still. The conversation had changed direction so quickly that he had cognitive whiplash. Amos didn’t move either. Presently he said: “I’d have edited that last part out before I sent the rest of the message.”

Prax nodded, then felt foolish because they were facing away from each other and Amos couldn’t see him. _Say something! Don’t leave him hanging!_ “That’s often what I do - say a lot of things that I don’t leave in.”

“Like what?”

 _This is it. This is your chance. Just **take** it._ Prax closed his eyes. “OK. Um. Like...like this is what I’ve wanted for years - having you here on Ganymede - and now you’re in my actual home, sitting on my actual floor. I wish I could express how good it is to have you here. You’re the best friend I’ve got, Amos. You - you’re like the sun - I can’t help turning toward you, all the time. I’ll never be free of you and I never want to be. I know you have a rule about not getting...involved...with people you’re close to. I know you can’t stay here with us long-term and you know I can’t come with you. But. If you want. We could. Try. Breaking your rule?”

Something had gone wrong with the connection between Prax’s brain and his mouth. He stopped talking and hoped his synapses would come back online, his face so hot he was certain he could have fried an egg on his forehead.

Amos’s next words were unexpected. “Did I ever tell you about Alex and his ex?”

“A bit,” said Prax, not sure where this was going but grateful that he’d regained control of his mouth. “You said he used to be married, but it fell apart when he left the navy.”

“Right. Seems they were OK while he was serving - they saw each other when he was on leave, had a great time together, looked forward to when he got his honorable discharge...only when it happened, he lasted a little while and then up and left on a five-year gig on the _Canterbury_. He loved his wife, but not enough to stay.”

“I see,” said Prax, who didn’t see at all but had a terrible, sinking feeling that Amos was about to say _So I think we should just stay friends_.

“Do you? Because what I’m trying to say is that I don’t want anything like that to happen to us. I’m not scared - if it’s left up to me, I’d jump in with both feet - but’s that leper thing again. I don’t have a fucking clue if this is a good idea or a bad one and I really, really don’t want to hurt you, Doc.”

“It seems to me,” said Prax, keeping his voice level with an effort, “that it comes down to what we expect of each other. Remember what Captain Holden and the others said when you asked them about me and Djuna? It’s like that. Alex and his wife thought they wanted the same thing, but it turned out that they didn’t.”

“OK. Yeah. So...what is it that you want, Doc?”

“I want...I want to stay on Ganymede for now. I want to raise my daughters, continue my work. I want to keep your friendship. I want to try for something more than friendship, too. And maybe, maybe someday, I might want to find a place on your ship.” He stopped. “Huh. I didn’t know that last bit until this moment, to be honest. Well, there it is - if you’ve got a berth for a resident botanist, I mean. But I don’t want to keep pretending that I don’t - ” Prax swallowed, his throat dry. “ - that I don’t want you. I do want you, Amos. You’re the most wonderful, amazing, scary, hilarious, beautiful man I’ve ever known.”

“Beautiful? That’s a first. How many beers did you have while I was in the shower?”

“Listen, I’m a scientist. You can rely on my observational skills,” said Prax. _Holy shit, are we flirting?_ “Now it’s your turn. What do you want?”

“I guess we’re in luck, since I’m on board with everything you said. Especially the idea of you coming to work on the _Roci._ That would be fucking _great._ You could be our med tech!”

“I’m not that kind of doctor, Amos.”

“Who gives a fuck? I told you about Shed, right? If he can fake it and make it, you can definitely pull it off. You’ve got way more brains than he ever did, poor guy.”

“I will give it serious thought,” said Prax, and he meant it. He meant it, and it frightened him. 

“Can’t ask fairer than that. But as for what I want right now...” The words were heavy with the promise of - not violence, but a latent dynamo of physicality straining to be free from the iron control that held it back. _I want to touch you and never stop touching you._ Prax was suddenly glad that Djuna and the girls were staying elsewhere tonight. “I want us to turn around. I want to look at you.”

They turned around.

Prax, his worries overshadowed by his lifelong compulsion to _see what happens if I do **this**_ , reached up to touch Amos’s beard. It was coarse and soft. He wondered how it would feel against his face. Against other places.

Amos closed his eyes briefly and leaned into Prax’s touch. One of them - Prax genuinely couldn’t tell which - made a small sound, almost a whimper.

“I gotta admit, I’m not sure what to do next,” said Amos. “The last time I did this with someone I gave a shit about was - a while ago.”

He didn’t say Lydia’s name, but he didn’t have to. Prax nodded to show that he understood, his heart aching at the thought of the life that had been dealt to a child in Baltimore. 

“I’ve got a few theories,” he said. “You can help me test them out.”

***

Things moved quickly after that - so quickly that Prax wasn’t entirely sure what happened. Hands everywhere - kisses that crossed the line into bites - skin sliding against skin - they were caught up in a tide of lust shot through with sharp pleasures. Then the tide receded, leaving them both spent, panting, and sticky. 

According to the clock on the wall display, the whole thing lasted less than five minutes.

Prax was abashed and apologetic, but Amos would have none of it. “Shit, I’m amazed we made it that long,” he said, blinking at him with his eyelids slightly out of sync, like a drowsy cat. “I’ve spent so long jerking off while thinking about you that it’s a goddamn miracle I didn’t cream my shorts the second you walked in. That was a practice run. There’s no rush.”

“No rush,” echoed Prax, both shocked and gratified by Amos’s bluntness. “Speaking of which...how long can you stay, exactly?”

“Like I said, the _Roci_ is docked for six months. I figured I can hang out here for most of that. I’ll find some work and get a room so I don’t have to bother your family more than necessary.”

“Out of the question. You’re staying here.” Prax wouldn’t have thought he had it in him to be this decisive, especially when between the end of one hard-on and the beginning of another, but the day had been full of surprises. “My home is your home while you’re on Ganymede. And I’ll be happy to give you references for a job on the maintenance crew on one of the ag domes - they’re always looking for competent people.” Amos was staring at him. Prax’s confidence wavered. “If that’s OK with you, I mean.”

“It is totally fucking OK with me, Doc.”

Then Amos grabbed his I-Survived-Ilus shirt and used it to clean both of them off - first Prax, then himself. This act of casual intimacy did more than anything else so far to convince Prax that this was happening, that this was _real._

Real or not, the spirit was willing, but the flesh was sleepy. Instead of leaping back into the fray, they lay in bed and talked until they fell asleep in a tangle of arms and legs. 

***

Prax woke up abruptly and completely some hours later. He sat up carefully so as not to wake Amos (not that this seemed very likely, judging by how hard he was snoring), and checked Mei’s VitaChip readout on his hand terminal. She was asleep, and about kilometer away; all was well there, then. He turned his attention back to Amos. He found himself thinking of the poem “To His Coy Mistress,” which he’d looked up after Amos gave him its name. 

_My vegetable love should grow  
Vaster than empires, and more slow._

Those lines had stayed with him, not only because he was always a sucker for a good plant metaphor, but because they seemed so applicable to their situation. 

He imagined their messages as green tendrils extending between Ganymede and the _Rocinante_ , tenuous but tenacious, reaching across immeasurable distances. And finally, here in this room, catching hold of each other.

 _Vaster than empires, and more slow._ Slowness did seem to be the defining trait of their relationship. It was like that bizarre non-place beyond the ring gate - the slow zone, people were calling it, with a staggering lack of originality. He and Amos had been moving toward each other for a long time, but not above a certain pace, for fear of a sudden and messy end. 

_But if you hold steady,_ he thought, _there’s a way through - and a new world waiting on the other side._

***

The next time he woke up, the room was lit by the dim, early-morning-sunlight approximation automatically provided by the apartment’s LEDs at five-thirty AM. Amos was awake too, buck-naked and sprawled on his stomach, his head pillowed on his arms.

“Morning, Doc,” he said. “Nice outfit.”

“Very funny,” said Prax, realizing that he was naked too. He grabbed his underwear from where it had ended up on the bedside table the night before. “Ugh...I have to pee so bad I might explode, and I absolutely have to brush my teeth. I feel like something crawled into my mouth and died.”

“Don’t blame me. We didn’t get that far.”

It took a second for Prax to realize what Amos meant by that, but when he did he covered up his embarrassment and excitement (which was proving to be a common combination when Amos was around) by getting up and going to the bathroom.

He’d emptied his bladder and was brushing his teeth when there was a knock at the door. “Come in,” he said, and Amos did, looking like a burly, disheveled Roman emperor with the bedsheet draped around himself toga-fashion.

“My turn,” he announced, and assumed the position over the toilet. 

Prax turned away, not wanting to be caught staring, but couldn’t help taking a peek in the mirror.

“Don’t act like you’re not impressed,” said Amos, without turning around. 

“Oh, shut up,” said Prax. He spat into the sink, rinsed, and returned to the guest room, where he crawled back into bed. _It’s too early for breakfast; maybe I can fall back asleep..._

Amos came back, shut and locked the door behind him, and dropped the sheet.

_...or not._

***

They took the scenic route this time. 

Prax examined every scar, every tattoo, every dip and swell of Amos’s body with his hands and mouth, while Amos lay there with his eyes shut and poured out a nonstop stream of ecstatic obscenities. Then Amos flipped Prax onto his belly and ran his fingernails lightly down Prax’s arms, shoulders, back, ass, and thighs, over and over, all the while explaining in the most graphic of terms what he was going to do to him next. Then he did it.

They cleaned themselves up and had started a load of laundry when Prax’s hand terminal chimed. It was Djuna. Prax hurriedly pulled on a shirt and took the call.

“Good morning!” said Djuna, grinning at him from the screen. She’d gotten hair extensions in an elaborate braided updo, and looked lovely. “Are you boys decent? We’re eating here, but we’ll be over afterwards to get the girls’ school stuff and my briefcase.”

“Of course,” said Prax, trying to look as if he hadn’t spent his day so far being systematically taken apart by a skilled mechanic. “We’re about to have breakfast ourselves.”

“I already ate,” called Amos from somewhere behind him. “Mmm, sausage!”

“Stop that! The girls might be listening!” hissed Prax. 

“Don’t worry, they’re pillaging the breakfast bar,” Djuna assured him, when she could stop laughing long enough to speak. “There won’t be a single strawberry left by the time they’re through. Now I’m hanging up before I hear anything else that might traumatize my delicate, shell-like ears.” She broke the connection.

“Honestly, Amos, that was a little much,” said Prax. “Amos? Where are you?”

There was a clatter. “Kitchen! What do you usually have for breakfast?”

“Uh - poached egg on kale,” said Prax, hopping on one leg as he tried to put on his pants and walk at the same time.

“I was thinking more like pancakes.”

“That works too.”

By the time Djuna, Mei, and Natalia came in, Prax and Amos were drinking coffee at the table, surrounded by the remains of a few dozen pancakes. Prax choked on his coffee when he saw the girls - they’d had their hair dyed bright pink (Natalia) and turquoise (Mei). 

“Wow! That is a _look_!” said Amos approvingly, and they beamed at him.

“We had a our nails done to match! See?” said Mei, displaying hers.

“I take it you had fun, then?” said Prax, giving them each a hug. The girls instantly launched into simultaneous accounts of their favorite parts of the spa, reminding, correcting, and arguing with each other until Djuna said:

“Sorry to interrupt, ladies, but you’ve got to get your school bags.”

“Did you - ” began Prax, catching hold of Mei’s hand, and she rolled her eyes.

“Yes, Dad, I took my meds.”

“Good girl.” He let her go and she ran to catch up with Nat, speculating loudly about the reactions their new hair would get from their teachers and classmates.

“Are you going to work today, Prax?” asked Djuna.

“Yes, of course.”

“You’d better get dressed, then. It’s almost eight.”

“Go ahead, Doc,” said Amos, “I’ll finish clearing up.” He waved a hand to indicate the leftovers and dishes.

“Thanks,” said Prax, and Amos gave him a smile that nearly made his legs buckle as he got up from the table. Djuna was hot on his trail as he retreated to the bedroom.

“I see it went well,” she said, when the door shut behind them.

“What do you mean?” hedged Prax, stripping off his pajamas and going through the pile of clean-but-not-yet-put-away clothes on the chair by the bed.

“You and Amos! Last night you were walking on eggshells! I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so uptight. And now you’re relaxed, smiling, making crass jokes - ”

“Hey now, that was him, not me,” protested Prax, yanking a shirt on over his head.

She helped him smooth out his collar, her fingers quick and practiced. “I know. And I’m delighted, Prax. I was worried you wouldn’t go through with it. But this is a chance you should grab with both hands - and you did.”

“I _could_ make a joke about that, but I won’t.”

“I can see that he’s a terrible influence on you.”

“Um...”

“What?”

“Do you think it would be inappropriate for him to stay on in the guest room for a while? For quite a while. He’s got six months before his ship flies again, and he said he’d like to spend most of that time on Ganymede.”

“Months? With _us_?” She sounded so shocked that Prax backpedaled. 

“He’s totally fine with getting his own place. The guest room was my idea. He doesn’t want to disrupt our - ”

“Of course he can stay with us!” Djuna’s face shone. “Oh, that’s - that’s incredible! Has he ever stayed in one place that long before? Other than on a ship, I mean. It’s wonderful! He really wants to make a go of this! I’m so _happy_ for you two! I’ll move into the guest room right away, so you guys can have the big bed, OK?”

“Wait. You’re really all right with this?”

Djuna put her hands on her hips. “For a man who’s supposed to have one of the most incisive minds on the station, you sure can be a bonehead. Am I being unclear?”

“I just - I don’t want to hurt you, or to weird the girls out.”

“How you explain it to the girls is up to you, but I think you’ll find that they’ll have no trouble with it whatsoever. As for me - look. You’re my friend, Prax, and the father of our girls. I want you to be happy. I’ve wanted this for you ever since you first told me about Amos. Let it happen. Life is short, you know? Take the good when it comes.” Prax saw her eyes shining with unshed tears, and knew she was thinking of her Maria. He wanted to comfort her somehow, to apologize for his happiness when she had lost so much, but before he could say anything she left the room. He could hear her in the hallway, calling for the girls to hurry up.

 _I don’t deserve her._ he thought. _I don’t deserve any of this._

***

Prax didn’t have to leave for another twenty minutes after Djuna and the girls headed out. He usually spent this time going over his to-do list, getting into his mental space for the work day. Today he ran around the apartment like a headless chicken, checking on Amos (“Almost done with these dishes, Doc”), going back to his room to cram the Ilus samples into his work satchel, checking on Amos again (“Laundry’s finished, do you want it in the dryer?”), misplacing his hand terminal, locating it in the refrigerator beside the bok choy, and going back to his room again when he noticed he was wearing mismatched shoes. 

He finally came to rest by the kitchen counter, gratefully accepting the coffee that Amos handed him. “I’m not usually this disorganized,” he said, taking a sip. “Mmm. Perfect, thanks.”

“I know it’s fucky having me around,” said Amos. “You sure you wouldn’t rather have me stay in a flophouse?”

“Positive,” said Prax, and Amos nodded. 

“All right then.”

“What are your plans for today?” said Prax, as they left the apartment.

“I’m coming with you. Didn’t you get the memo? It’s Take-Your-Fuck-Buddy-to-Work Day,” said Amos, and then cracked up at the look on Prax’s face. “Don’t worry, I’m yanking your chain.”

“It’s not - I’d be glad to have you come with me, except you’d probably be bored out of your mind. Your phrasing took me off guard, that’s all.” _Fuck buddy? Is that a thing? Like - what is it - ‘friends with benefits’? Accurate, to a point, but I’d like to think there’s more to us than that. What are we? Boyfriends? No, too juvenile. Lovers?_ This flashed through Prax’s mind in the time it took him to lock the door behind them and start down the corridor towards the tube station. “I’ve got a lot of admin stuff to take care of this morning, but I’ll be working in Ag Dome Three later, which might interest you. How about I show you where my office is, and you can meet me there for lunch? Oh - damn. I forgot to pack my lunch.”

“I’ll take care of it,” said Amos, before Prax could turn back. “What’s the best takeout place around here?”

***

Prax had a singularly unproductive morning. It took him three times longer to take care of his administrative duties than it should have, and even the excitement of using the office lab equipment to examine plant analogs from a new solar system wasn’t enough to keep his mind from wandering. He caught himself staring unseeingly into the eyepiece for minutes at a time while his mind busied itself with questions such as _How long has it been since I kissed someone like that? I’d forgotten how it felt. Tongues are so strange - smooth underneath, pebbly on top...I wonder who first decided to show their affection by putting their mouth on someone else’s?_

He’d just realized that Khana, one of his coworkers, had asked him a question and was waiting for a reply when Amos ambled into the office, laden with takeout boxes from at least half a dozen different places.

“Ooh! Is there a party I didn’t know about?” said Khana, eyeing the boxes - and Amos - with obvious interest.

“Yeah. I’m the stripper,” said Amos cheerfully, setting the cartons down on Prax’s desk. “Sorry for the overkill, Doc - there are way too many food vendors in this place.”

“Don’t worry about it. This is going to be the best lunch I’ve ever had,” said Prax, opening cartons and inhaling deeply. The smells of lentil curry, fried chicken, chapati, Swedish meatballs, coconut rice, and Sichuan beef filled the air. “Khana, why don’t you go tell Karvonides and the others to join us? There’s no way we’ll finish all this by ourselves.”

“Will do,” said Khana and returned shortly with the rest of their section in tow. The impromptu gathering was a jovial one - Prax had never met anyone who objected to free food, especially when it was the good stuff. Amos hadn’t cheaped out on anything and there wasn’t any textured protein in sight. Everyone was so busy stuffing their faces that ten minutes went by before the first awkward question was asked.

“So, to what - or to whom - do we owe this glorious feast?” said Karvonides, wiping meatball sauce off her chin with a paper napkin.

“The stripper,” said Khana, with a malicious grin.

“Wait, really?” Karvonides looked around the room, half-alarmed and half-hopeful.

“We should be so lucky,” said Khana.

“I’m off the clock,” said Amos, straight-faced.

“Well, whoever you are, thanks - this was the highlight of my week. Probably of my month,” said Karvonides, patting her stomach and groaning. 

“Are you really a stripper?” said Khana.

“Naw. I’m a mechanic. Just visiting Dr. Meng for a bit. He’s my - ” ( _Don’t say fuck buddy, don’t say fuck buddy, don’t say fuck buddy_ prayed Prax) “ - best friend.”

“Well!” said Khana. “Dr. Meng is fortunate in his friends!”

Prax was so torn between relief and sentiment that didn’t trust himself to speak, and addressed his attention to scooping up the last of the coconut rice on his plate with a piece of chapati. 

When the food was gone (which didn’t take long), the other scientists found other places they had to be (which also didn’t take long), leaving Prax and Amos alone in Prax’s office. Amos told him about his morning - he’d done some exploring and checked in with Holden. “He and Naomi are helping out where they can with the refit, but there’s not a lot for them to do. Fred’s people have it under control.”

Prax gave him a summary of his own day so far - leaving out the excessive wool-gathering - and thanked him again for the samples from Ilus. “They’re like nothing I’ve ever seen before. There’s some recognizable traits - they appear to use a form of photosynthesis, for instance - but in other ways - well. I don’t want to bore you. But trust me, it’s extremely interesting.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” said Amos, dumping the last pile of paper plates into the recycler. “What now? Ag dome time?”

“Sure. I’ll be glad to move around after all that food,” said Prax, although he really hadn’t eaten all that much, thanks to the number of coworkers who’d been there to join in the meal.

***

Ag Dome Three was devoted to ferns modified for air and water purification, with other crops interspersed in broad stripes with their green-black fronds. Prax and Amos walked up and down between rows of ferns, corn, beans, and tomatoes, all engineered to thrive in low light. Amos listened to Prax’s commentary with his hands in his pockets, taking in his surroundings and asking the occasional question. He was a good audience. He didn’t pretend to understand things when he didn’t, but he was genuinely interested, and his questions were intelligent. Prax had to reword some of his answers to rid them of jargon that would be meaningless to a non-botanist, but he enjoyed the exercise. 

Air circulated through the dome’s filters with a near-subliminal hum, rustling leaves and stalks together. A drone whirred past now and then, and there were some people at work harvesting pole beans, but they were on the other side of the dome - so far away that Prax only knew they were there because he’d seen the schedule. He tried to imagine how it must all appear to Amos, after spending so long in the confines of a ship, and glanced at him over his shoulder. Amos was looking off into the distance, his eyes unfocused. _Even when he was on Earth, he lived in a city,_ Prax reminded himself. _This is probably the most green he’s ever seen in one place._

“What do you think?” he asked.

“Is this the dome that the mirrors landed on?”

“Yeah.”

“Incredible. I can’t believe how much you’ve done. Good work, Doc.”

Prax chuckled. “It wasn’t just me, but thanks. Now - want to see something cool?”

“Cooler than this?”

“Different, anyway. See these tomatoes?” He gestured to the plants around them, ten feet tall and supported by sturdy wire frames, their deep red fruit nearly glowing in contrast against their foliage. 

“I sure do.”

“These are the strains that we’ve genetically altered to thrive in low-g, low-light conditions, and to put out nutrient-dense fruit that’s tough enough to withstand long-distance transport. But if you come this way, I can show you the parent plants.”

“You mean like they are on Earth?”

“Right. We keep them in their own greenhouse, sealed off so they don’t cross-pollinate by accident - plus they require a little pampering, stronger light and so on. Want to taste some real Earth-type tomatoes?”

“Are they different?”

“Oh yes. They’re much more fragile, and the flavor...I’ll let you judge for yourself. Here, have one of these first, for reference.” Prax picked a random tomato and gave it to Amos.

“Yep,” said Amos, after the first bite. “That’s a tomato, all right.” He finished it in two more bites and wiped the juice from his beard.

“That’s space tomato,” corrected Prax. “Come on.” He led the way to the far side of the dome - a ten-minute walk - and stopped in front of a greenhouse made of translucent plastic panels. “I just need to unlock...where’s that damn key card? Ah.” He passed it in front of the electronic eye by the door, which slid open. “In we go.”

From the outside, the greenhouse looked small in comparison to the dome in which it stood. Once inside, its true scale became apparent - forty meters long, twenty meters wide, four meters high, and filled entirely with tomato plants. The distinctive smell of their leaves was strong but not unpleasant, to Prax’s mind. “Well, this is it,” he said. “The land of the Earther tomatoes.”

“Wow,” said Amos, reaching for the nearest plant and then pausing. “Is it all right if I touch them?”

“Go ahead.” Prax watched him run his fingers over the potato-leaf foliage of a fine Glacier specimen.

“They look like the plants in movies. Green-green.”

“Now you need to taste one.”

“Aren’t they...valuable?” said Amos, showing more concern over the propriety of tomato-eating than he had over any other activity Prax had seen him engage in so far. 

“Terrifically. But I work here. Let me abuse my power a little.” He picked a cherry tomato from a cluster that spilled luxuriantly into the pathway and held it up. “Here.”

Amos took the little red globe carefully between his finger and thumb, as though it were an egg that might break - or hatch - if he handled it too roughly. “I don’t want to get you in trouble, that’s all.”

“Amos. Eat the damn tomato.”

He did so, popping it into his mouth whole. His eyes grew wide when he bit down. “Fuck! That’s a tomato? You didn’t cross it with a pineapple or some shit like that?”

“No shit like that,” laughed Prax.

“But it’s sweet!”

“It’s meant to be. That’s what it tastes like. ‘Gardener’s Sweetheart,’ that one’s called. Try some other varieties.”

Amos raised no more objections. He trailed after Prax, accepting - and eating - tomato after tomato as they were placed into his hands. Prax shifted into lecture mode without meaning to and discoursed on the differences in texture, flavor, environmental preferences, and more. “...they’re so well suited to savory uses that we think of them as vegetables, but as every primary school student is scandalized to learn, they’re technically fruit.”

“What I want to know,” said Amos, halfway through a golden-skinned, creamy-fleshed Yellow Brandywine the size of even his significant fist, “is how anyone can ever bring themselves to cook these beauties down into sauce.” He considered this while he chewed. “Bet it’d taste amazing, though.”

“It does. We can try it tonight if you like,” said Prax. “I have a great recipe for manicotti with fresh tomato sauce. The cheese I can’t guarantee, but - ”

“Hold up, Doc. I’ve probably eaten two month’s salary in tomatoes since coming in here. Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“Don’t worry, we’ll only pick the ones with cracks and other blemishes - unfit for distribution. The pickers have to cull them anyway. We’ll be doing them a favor.”

“If you say so,” said Amos, finishing off the rest of the Yellow Brandywine. “I don’t know how you manage to have any of these left to harvest. If I worked in here I’d end up eating them all myself.”

“Since I have constant access, I don’t feel the need to stuff myself - human nature, I suppose. I do like sharing with those who haven’t had a chance to try them before. It reminds me what a treasure trove we have here.”

“Fucking voyeur, that’s what you are - getting off on us poor deprived folks having a thrill.”

“Very funny,” said Prax, willing himself not to blush. “Oh, these are one of my favorites - Garden Peach.” He knelt, both to hide his reddening face and to gain better access to the ripened fruit. 

Amos moved closer. “Why don’t you eat that one, Doc.” It wasn’t a question. 

Prax couldn’t think of any good reason not to comply, so he did so. He picked one of the slightly fuzzy, yellowish-pink globes and bit into it with exaggerated care, savoring the moment when his teeth pierced the thin skin. He concentrated on the feel and flavor - not too watery or dry, sweet and mild. It really was marvelous. He made an involuntary noise of appreciation and smiled up at Amos a little sheepishly. “There. I have enjoyed my tomato. Happy now?”

Amos didn’t smile back. His eyes were very dark. “That’s one word for it.”

Prax was suddenly aware of their positions relative to one another - himself kneeling in the rich, black soil, Amos looming over him, the soaring, fruit-studded plants forming both walls and canopy about them. _Alone in a greenhouse, on my knees to Amos Burton. Is this what I was aiming for all along?_

As if reading his thoughts, Amos said: “Do you bring all your conquests here?”

“Just one, so far.” 

“There’s security cameras.”

“And guess who’s job it is to go over the footage at the end of the day?”

Amos cupped the back of Prax’s head with one huge hand. “You’re a bad, bad man.”

***

Prax wasn’t much good at work that afternoon, either. He got through it by ruthlessly pinning his mind down with checklists and outlines and talking himself through his tasks out loud - but all the while his memories unspooled behind his eyes in an unbroken loop. _Amos turning up with enough takeout to feed the entire staff; Amos looking Khana in the eye and saying “I’m his best friend;” Amos wiping tomato juice off his beard; Amos unzipping his coverall..._

He went over the surveillance footage from the greenhouse as soon as he returned to his office. To his relief, it showed nothing more alarming than Dr. Praxidike Meng escorting a guest up and down the lush green rows, picking rather more tomatoes than he probably should. At one point Dr. Meng ducked down and stayed out of sight for a few minutes, but he was probably doing something helpful to one of the plants. 

Just in case, Prax wiped the recording.

He’d been so overwhelmed by the unexpectedness and intensity of the encounter that he’d neglected to make plans to meet Amos after work (although he had remembered to fill a crate with imperfect tomatoes to take home for dinner). Any concerns he had about tracking him down vanished as soon as he left the office complex and found Amos lounging on a bench under a potted benjamin fig tree, drinking a huge cup of something orange through a straw.

“Hey there,” said Amos. “Going my way?”

“Maybe. I’ve got to get Mei and Nat from school.”

“Sounds good.” Amos got up and fell into step beside him, slurping mightily at the last of his beverage. “Damn, that was delicious!”

“What was it?”

“Mango smoothie.”

“Good choice.”

They made small talk all the way to the tube station, leaving unmentioned any things that may or may not have occurred in the tomato greenhouse. Prax kept expecting the embarrassment to rise up and swamp him, but it didn’t happen. He walked with Amos, carried his crate of tomatoes, and felt good. So good, in fact, that he shifted the crate under one arm and slipped his free hand into Amos’s. Amos looked at him in surprise, and Prax’s heart sank. “Is this OK?” he asked. 

“Sure,” said Amos. “I’ve never done it before, that’s all.”

Prax thought his heart might break at this offhand remark. His heart filled with rage and love - he wanted to fight everyone who’d ever hurt this man, and he wanted to gather him in his arms to protect him from all harm. Neither of which he could do. “We don’t have to. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable,” he said, starting to withdraw his hand. Amos tightened his grip and held on.

“No, I mean it. It’s OK. This is something people do when they’re...better than friends, right?”

“Yes.”

“Well, then.”

***

If anyone had told Prax a week ago that he’d soon be living with Amos, Prax would have laughed in their face and then gone away depressed because such a thing was obviously never going to happen. 

But here they were. 

Every day he woke up beside Amos, had breakfast with him and Djuna and the girls, met him for lunch, collected Mei and Nat with him after school, did the shopping, and took turns making dinner. Every day his deep-seated disbelief in his good fortune unknotted a little more.

Amos signed onto the maintenance team for Agricultural Dome Three, which meant that Prax had the pleasure of seeing him striding around like he owned the place, fixing leaky hydroponics lines and driving mech rigs up the outside of the dome to inspect the integrity of the seals.

“Got another coverall for my collection,” said Amos, the first day he came in wearing his new uniform - a dark green jumpsuit with GANYMEDE AGD3 printed across the back. Prax refrained from saying something saccharine about the way it brought out the color of Amos’s eyes, and how well Amos filled out the sleeves. _Does he get them a size too small on purpose or are his arms just that big? Not that I’m complaining._

Between Prax’s knowledge of the station’s layout and Amos’s new job-related familiarity with the network of access tunnels and storage closets, they had no problem finding places for spur-of-the-moment assignations. Prax went around in a haze of arousal, knowing that at any moment he might be confronted by a large, persuasive mechanic who needed him to come look at something _right away, Dr. Meng._

(“I’ve got this terrible urge to put things in my mouth all the time, Doc. What do you recommend?”

“You do know I’m not that kind of doctor, right?”

“Not from where I’m standing.”)

It was like being a teenager again. No. It was far better than that. Prax had never had anything like this amount of stolen kisses or of clever hands groping in the dark when he’d been an actual adolescent. It was intoxicating. Amos seemed to possess a bottomless well of physical affection which - now that it had found an outlet - couldn’t be restrained. He liked to appear out of nowhere and take Prax off guard, to the point where Prax suspected that if was ever accosted by a big thug with designs on his money, his virtue, and his life, his first reaction would be to leap into his arms and kiss him. Not that he minded. Oh no. He was having far too good a time to raise any objections. They were being discreet, after all. What was the harm in making up for lost time? 

They might not have been as discreet as he thought, however. About a week after Amos arrived, he, Amos, and the girls came home to find Djuna sitting in the living room with a woman who Prax recognized vaguely as someone’s graduate assistant. They were having tea, but their expressions were serious.

“I’d better go,” said the woman, getting to her feet. “Thanks for listening, Djuna. I wish you the best.”

“Thank you,” said Djuna solemnly. 

The woman smiled at the girls, nodded at Prax and Amos (somewhat frostily, Prax thought) and left without another word.

“What was that about?” said Prax. “Nat, Mei, hang your coats up properly! Honestly, it’s not like this is a new policy - every day we go through this.”

“Sorry, Dad,” chorused the girls, picking up their coats from where they’d dropped them by the door and hanging them up on the wall hooks. Then they dashed to their room, arguing shrilly over whether they wanted to go ice skating or swimming after dinner as their Friday-night-fun-thing. 

“Just wait till you hear,” said Djuna, her eyes shining with suppressed laughter.

“Where does all this shit go? The fridge?” said Amos, laden with grocery bags.

“Everything except the bread, please. That can stay out,” said Prax. “Come on, Djuna, tell us. Who was she and why did she look so, uh - ”

“ - so fucking pissed off at me and Doc?” finished Amos, setting the bags on the counter. 

“She came to tell me, as her painful duty, that she’s seen my allegedly good and caring partner in compromising situations with his alleged best friend over the past week.”

Amos grinned unrepentantly. “Uh-oh.”

“Did you correct her?” said Prax, remembering with a feeling of dread where he’d seen the woman before - she worked with Dr. Alvarez, the worst gossip on the station.

“Correct her? You mean you _haven’t_ been feeling each other up in maintenance closets all over the ag complex?”

Prax opened and shut his mouth a few times while Amos roared with laughter. Finally he managed to say: “Did you at least tell her that you don’t mind?”

“Are you kidding? And ruin the fun?”

“Djuna, please. I don’t want my lab results tampered with by vengeful grads.”

“Well then, stop making out in front of everyone,” said Djuna, who was enjoying the situation far too much.

“We’re not! I promise! She’s just nosy!”

“All right, all right... I’ll text her later and set her straight. Deal?”

“Thank you.”

***

The girls settled on ice skating, so after they’d eaten dinner (tacos) they all went to the rink. Djuna spotted a friend from work over at the refreshment stand and went over to chat with them and drink hot chocolate while Natalia and Mei swooped around on the ice, their vibrantly colored hair making them easy to pick out among the other skaters. Amos and Prax leaned against the fence and watched them.

“I wonder if I should talk to the girls,” Prax mused.

“About what?”

“About us. I don’t want them getting the wrong idea.”

“I think they’ve got more brains than that interfering woman who came to see Djuna - they can see that whatever’s happening here, we’re all on board with it. But go for it, if it’ll make you feel better. Can’t hurt,” said Amos with a shrug.

At this point Mei came sliding over, complaining that her skates pinched her toes.

“You’ve probably gone up a size,” said Prax. “Remember how we had to get you new sneakers last month? _Again?_ You can exchange them for bigger ones over there.”

“OK,” said Mei, bending down to unbuckle her skates and stepping out of them. “Why don’t you guys get some too? Dad? You know you want to!”

“I really, really don’t,” said Prax fervently. He’d taken a spill last time and done something to his knee that still bothered him when he moved it wrong.

“I’m game, pumpkin,” said Amos. 

“Great! Come with me!” said Mei, taking charge of the situation immediately and marching Amos to the rental window. 

Prax stayed behind to cheer Nat on - “Watch this, Dad!” she shouted, skating backwards with what he thought was unnecessary speed - but he could hear when Amos and Mei returned and sat down to put on their skates. 

“Buckle them as tight as you can - that way you won’t wobble so much,” she instructed him. Then, after a pause: “It’s awesome having you live with us, Amos.”

“I’m glad you think so. I’m sure having a good time.”

“Can you stay forever?”

Prax studiously remained facing away, not wanting to reveal that he was (a) eavesdropping and (b) wondering the exact same thing.

“Not forever. I live on the _Roci_ with Naomi and Alex and Jim, remember?”

Mei sighed. “Yeah, I know. But maybe you could live here instead? I like having two dads and a mom.”

“Is that so?” Amos didn’t sound ruffled by this information, but Prax’s heart clenched. 

“There’s a few kids in my class with lots of parents, and I always thought they were so lucky! This one boy, Saidi, has two moms and _three_ dads!”

“Wow - that’s nearly up to Cap’s standards!” 

“So how long _are_ you staying?”

“A few months. Then I’m going back to my ship. But I’ll come to stay whenever I can.”

Mei _humphed_. Prax knew exactly what expression went with that sound - that well-I-guess-it’ll-do look she got when presented with any option other than her first choice.

“Listen, pumpkin,” Amos went on. “I don’t want you to think of me as your dad. Not because I don’t care about you - you know I do, right?”

“Uh-huh.”

“But it’s...your dad. He’s the real deal, you know? He’s always been there for you and he always will be. I can’t be that. I can’t be here for you like he can. He’s...someone special.”

“I know.” Mei’s voice was small. Then, in her usual bright tones: “How about my uncle? Can you be my uncle?”

“Sure, kiddo. Be glad to.”

“All right! C’mon, _Uncle_ Amos. Let’s see how you do on the ice!” A moment later she was wobbling past Prax on her properly-fitting skates, dragging Amos behind her like a tug towing an ice-hauler. “Dad, are you sure you’re not coming?”

“Someone needs to be on the sidelines to point and laugh when Amos falls over,” said Prax, ruffling her turquoise hair. “Try not to damage him too badly.”

“I know, right?” said Amos, gingerly stepping out onto the rink. “Let’s strap knives to our feet and slide around on a rock-hard, frozen surface with a big crowd of other people doing the same thing. What could go wrong?”

“You’ll do great!” Mei assured him, taking his arm to steady him. 

“Doc, you should come hold my other hand,” said Amos.

“I think the girls have got that covered,” laughed Prax, as Nat skated up, squealing with glee.

***

Life went on. Or rather, life began. It was like when he had recovered from starvation on board the _Roci_ , except that this time he was starving for something other than food - for Amos, apparently. And Amos was just as starved for him. Maybe it was because it was the only poem he’d ever read voluntarily, but Prax was again reminded of lines from “To His Coy Mistress:”

_Now let us sport us while we may,_  
_And now, like amorous birds of prey,_  
_Rather at once our time devour_  
_Than languish in his slow-chapped power._

They were consuming each other, absorbing each other through every pore, but instead of being used up they grew fuller, better, more awake. All this while the specter of imminent separation lurked in the background. The temporary nature of their time together never fully left his mind, and it colored everything they did with a sense of urgency. 

_Let us roll all our strength and all_  
_Our sweetness up into one ball,_  
_And tear our pleasures with rough strife_  
_Through the iron gates of life:_  
_Thus, though we cannot make our sun_  
_Stand still, yet we will make him run._

Prax never said “I love you.” He wanted to. Oh, how he wanted to. But he was afraid. He knew Amos’s thoughts on romance. He also knew that Amos was one of the most loving people he’d ever met. Yes, he had an odd way of showing it, and a straight-line way of thinking that often came across as brutal, but once he’d let someone into his circle, he cared for them fiercely and forever.

 _It’s semantics,_ Prax told himself. _Actions speak louder than words. His actions say that he loves me. Maybe not in the hearts-and-flowers, to-thee-I-pledge-my-troth way, but he loves me. I just don’t want to say it and have him say nothing in return._

So he said it when Amos slept, and he wrote it on Amos’s bare back with his fingers, layer upon layer of invisible text crisscrossing and overlaying the ink.

***

One day Amos showed up at Prax’s office, not with innuendo-laced requests for medical attention, but with a flat, preoccupied look in his eyes and his duffel bag over his shoulder. 

_Oh no. It’s happened._ Prax had no clue what _it_ might be, but he’d been bracing himself for it ever since he saw Amos sitting in the school coatroom - bracing himself to lose him.

“I’ve got to go,” said Amos, the words ringing in Prax’s ears with awful finality.

“Go where?” he asked, holding onto the illusion till the last possible second - that Amos only meant that he had to go to the gym or the liquor store.

“Earth. Baltimore.”

That was unexpected. “Baltimore? I thought you hated that place!”

“I do. But I’ve got stuff to take care of.”

Prax shook his head. “No. I’m sorry, but you can’t do that.”

“I kind of think I can,” said Amos, with a humorless chuckle.

“That’s not - let me start again. I’m not trying to stop you. I just meant - could you please, _please_ not leave without telling me what’s going on?”

“It’s got nothing to do with you, Doc.”

“No. No, it does. Our lives aren’t separate. What affects you affects me, can’t you see? I won’t pry and I won’t ask you to stay. But an explanation is required.”

Amos gave him a long, unreadable look. Then: “Lydia’s dead.”

Prax let out a soundless “Oh,” feeling like he’d had the wind knocked out of him.

“I’ve got to find out what happened to her. If she died naturally, fine. If someone killed her, I’m going to kill them back.”

“Just like that?”

Amos shrugged. “It’s not complicated.”

The situation might not have been complicated, but the feelings that came boiling up inside Prax certainly were. Sadness and anger, well-mixed with disappointment ( _so soon! Leaving so soon, and so easily!_ ), jealousy ( _over a woman he hasn’t seen in twenty years_ ), and even admiration for the single-minded devotion and loyalty of which Amos was capable. He was taken aback by the offhand way Amos talked about killing Lydia’s hypothetical murderer, but at the same time was not surprised at all, having seen this aspect of him before. He was also alarmed at how this had no effect whatsoever on his own feelings about Amos. _What does it say about me, that the love of my life is a cold-blooded killer and I regard it as a personality quirk?_

Prax exhaled, trying to release his inner turmoil along with the carbon dioxide. Amos seemed to be waiting for him to speak, so when he thought he was capable of doing so without blurting out some or all of his swarming, seething thoughts, he said: “Good luck, then. Take care of yourself.”

Amos snorted. “No need to tell me that. It’s about I know how to do. I’m a selfish bastard. Even coming here at all was selfish. I wanted you, plain and simple, and now I’ve fucked it up like I knew I would. I shouldn’t have - ”

“If you say you shouldn’t have come, and that you’re sorry for what we’ve had over these past weeks, I’ll - I’ll punch you right on the nose.” Prax’s words, foolish as they were, put a stop to Amos’s burst of self-recrimination. He blundered on before he lost his momentum. “Do you really think you’re the only one who wanted this? Were you not paying attention? I knew you’d go away again eventually. I’m not stupid. But I would have been stupid if I didn’t take the opportunity to be with you while I could. I know we’ve opened ourselves up to a whole new world of ways to hurt each other, but it’s worth it. Don’t ever doubt that. Now go on and do what you need to do. I’ll...I’ll send you a message later.”

He poured all of this out with his eyes fixed on Amos’s boots, but at the end he looked up. Amos held his gaze for a beat and then grabbed Prax by the upper arms, lifting him right off the ground so that their faces were level.

“Praxidike Meng,” he said, “you deserve better than me - but God knows I’m glad you’re willing to settle.” He kissed Prax once, hard - then again, softly - and set him back down. “Say goodbye to Djuna and Nat and Mei-Mei for me, would you? My ride leaves in fifteen minutes.”

“I’ll tell them,” said Prax.

“See you later,” said Amos, and walked away.

_Promise?_

***

Prax got a message from Amos three days later saying that he’d arrived in one piece. 

Time went by and things returned to something like normal, with added sweetness (when he remembered that Amos had come to him, what they had said and done) and sadness (when he thought of where Amos was now and what he might be doing). Djuna, with characteristic empathy, didn’t talk about it when it became clear that Prax didn’t want to. The girls seemed unfazed. They were already making plans for what they should do the next time he was able to visit. Prax was thankful for this, as it made the abrupt separation seem more like an unfortunate inconvenience than a shattering disappointment.

Then a madman sent rocks crashing to Earth, and the world ended.

It was like one of his old nightmares come to life. The devastation of Earth didn’t touch Ganymede physically, but from the stunned looks on the faces of those around him, it might as well have been another mirror crash. 

He tried not to watch the news. It was impossible to avoid it entirely, since what seemed like every screen and monitor on the station was tuned into the live feeds and updates coming from Luna and what was left of Earth’s surface, but he refused to have them on at home or at work.

Every day that went by without word from Amos was another confirmation that the worst had happened. Djuna watched him with her eyes full of remembered pain, and told him that if he wanted to talk, or to shut himself into the bathroom and have a breakdown, it would be better than holding it all in. Prax agreed with her, thanked her, held her close - but he didn’t cry. 

He wasn’t holding back the tears on purpose. It just...didn’t happen. He felt removed from the situation, divided from it, able to look at it and think “We had three weeks together, and then he left for a planet that has been essentially destroyed. He’s dead.” But all he felt was resignation and numbness.

Prax had seen his marriage disintegrate; he’d lost Mei; he’d endured months of silence when Amos was beyond the ring gate. So many variations on the theme of sorrow. Now he was simply tired. _Maybe there are only so many times a person can have their heart torn out before it stops growing back._

His work kept him sane. With Earth reeling and ravaged, Ganymede’s importance as a food source increased dramatically. Prax blessed the long hours that were required of him - something productive in which he could lose himself. Between the increased workload and the duties of parenthood, he was often able to make it from one end of the day to the other without once dropping below surface-level concerns. 

The only time when his deeper self threatened to break through was when he was waiting to fall asleep. Then he would stare dry-eyed at the ceiling, or the wall, or Djuna’s shoulder, and make lists in his head.

_Why It Would Never Have Worked Out Anyway._

_Why I’m Better Off Without Him._

_Why It’s All Right That I Never Told Him I Loved Him._

***

A few months after the rocks fell, Prax and Djuna met up at their favorite cafe for lunch. They did this once or twice a week, whenever their schedules allowed for it. Djuna was enjoying a tall iced chai and veggie kebabs. Prax stuck to his favorite chicken salad wrap and coffee.

His hand terminal buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out, hoping it was the results from the latest batch of tests on the new strain of modified yeast, and stared at the notification blankly.

_Incoming message from Amos Burton._

His hand began to shake.

“Hey,” said Djuna, noticing his distress. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

Prax held up his hand terminal so that she could see it. Djuna put her hands over her mouth. They stared at each other in frozen silence for about ten seconds, and then she lowered her hands.

“Are you going to open it?”

Prax kept holding the hand terminal up, afraid to even look at the screen again, and made a confused half-shrug, half-headshake motion. Djuna took pity on him.

“Do you want me to do it?”

“Please.” He gave the hand terminal to her, then clasped his palms together and pinned them between his knees to keep them still.

Djuna turned away so that her body blocked the screen. Prax watched her posture, waiting for it to go from tense to defeated, for her to give him the final confirmation of what he thought he had already accepted - 

She let out a laugh that was part sob. “Oh God. Oh God, Prax. He’s OK, he’s alive, he’s - here, look!” She pushed the terminal back into his hands and then he was watching the message as it played, Amos’s hairy, beloved face filling the screen. Prax was so absorbed in every detail of how he looked (the beard disguised it, but it was plain that Amos hadn’t been getting enough to eat lately, and that he’d been in some fights) that he didn’t hear a word he said beyond “I’m all right” and had to play the whole thing over again.

“Hey, Doc. I’m all right. I can’t talk long - there’s a lot going on right now - but we all made it back to the _Roci_ , with a couple new crew members to boot. We’ll all be stopping by Ganymede in about a week, so brace yourselves. Sorry about being on another planet when it blew up. I don’t do it on purpose, I swear. See you soon.”

Prax put his head down on the table, right there in the middle of the cafe, and cried like a baby.

***

The week crawled past, during which Prax endured all the agonies of suspense and worry that he hadn’t been able to feel when he thought Amos was dead. It helped when he got a series of much longer messages from Amos explaining in detail what he’d been up to, what the others had been up to, and how they’d all survived - and also why Bobbie Draper and Clarissa Mao were now living on the _Rocinante_. Prax basked in the sound of his voice and tried very hard not to overthink.

Now he was at the docks with Djuna, Nat, and Mei, watching the Arrivals display on the main screen.

“That’s them,” said Djuna, pointing. “They’ve been cleared to dock at - ”

“Gate 37A!” said Mei, jumping up and down. “Where’s that?”

“To the left, I think,” said Prax, his voice sounding high and nervous in his own ears.

“Right,” said Djuna.

“But the sign - ” began Nat.

“I meant _correct,_ as you’re well aware, smartypants. Come on, let’s go!”

They threaded their way through the piles of containers and bales of this and that, the people walking with their eyes glued to their cargo manifests, and clusters of rowdy ice buckers back from a long haul. There weren’t many families with children around and Prax wondered if it was appropriate, having the girls along. But they’d begged so hard, and Djuna hadn’t thought it was a bad idea, so here they were.

After a couple of wrong turns they found Gate 37A. The readout over the door flashed _Docking In Progress_ in red letters, cycling through English, Hindi, and Belter patois. Then the words turned green. _Docking Complete._

“Where are they?” demanded Mei.

“Give them a few minutes. They just got here,” said Prax.

They’d played some rounds of Higgy Piggy to pass the time when the gate squawked a brief warning and slid open. The girls began bouncing up and down and Prax had to resist the urge to join in. Djuna squeezed his arm and looked up at him with merry eyes, as if she knew exactly what he was thinking. Which she probably did.

Then Holden came through the gate, his attention instantly claimed by the dock supervisor who came scurrying over - Naomi was with him, still weak after her ordeal with the Free Navy but smiling - Alex, dwarfed by Bobbie - a small, slight woman with hollow eyes, who must be Clarissa - and Amos. Amos, not even limping, and scanning the crowd for the source of the chant of “A-MOS! A-MOS! A-MOS!” that Mei and Nat had started. 

Prax couldn’t move. Djuna gave him a small push and he stumbled forward a step.

Amos saw him.

 _Don’t do anything stupid. Everyone’s watching. Walk over and say you’re glad he’s here._ Before Prax could carry out this sensible plan of action, Amos was moving - lumbering into a run - sprinting at him full tilt, people leaping aside and falling over in their haste to get out of his way. He caught Prax up in his arms and spun him around in a bone-cracking hug. “Doc! Jesus fucking _Christ_ , am I glad to see you!”

Prax’s dignity - such as it was - crumbled without a fight, leaving him laughing, crying, struggling to free his arms so that he could hug Amos back - and then Amos kissed him, and that was the most important thing in the universe. 

***

Later - after a jumble of reunions and introductions, and after a long and uproarious dinner for ten (fueled in part by the wine Amos had given Djuna - “I found the occasion!” she said) crowded into the apartment - Holden announced that he was treating everyone to a night at the spa. 

There was less food variety available than there had been before the rocks fell, but the hotel was still in business, albeit with a smaller menu. People still liked massages and mud baths and mani-pedis and hot tubs even in the midst of trauma and war; maybe even more than during peace. So it was a good thing that Holden was in the mood to throw some serious money around. He overcame paltry obstacles like no regular rooms being available by renting the penthouse and two of the opulent suites favored by newlyweds.

Holden and Naomi were installed in one of the honeymoon suites. The penthouse featured three separate bedrooms, so Djuna, Nat, and Mei took one, Bobbie and Clarissa the second, and Alex claimed the third “in solitary splendor,” as he joked. 

That left the other honeymoon suite for Amos and Prax. 

It was aggressively decorated in the vintage Americana/Las Vegas style of which newlyweds were inexplicably fond, meaning that everything was either an eye-watering shade of pink or else some permutation of leopard print and zebra stripes. 

Once they became accustomed to the riot of colors, cushions, deep-piled carpets, chandeliers, and mirrors, they discovered that they were really very nice rooms. There was an enormous bed (heart-shaped and covered in absurdly slippery faux-satin sheets); an entire dresser full of brand-new, plastic-wrapped items that the freshly married might be expected to find enjoyable (Amos laughed so hard at some of these that he had to sit down); a bathroom with a shower easily big enough for four adults; and in the center of the living area, their own personal hot tub (also heart-shaped). 

Prax was contemplating the frills that encircled the control panel by the main door, wondering how they were attached and why anyone would bother, when Amos came out of the bathroom wearing a bathrobe that was too short and, of course, pink.

“That’s a good look for you,” said Prax, grinning.

“Yeah, well, there’s plenty more where this came from, so we can match,” said Amos, turning around with his arms outstretched. He hadn’t bothered to tie the robe shut, which made it abundantly clear that he hadn’t bothered to wear anything under it, either. “Hot stuff, am I right?”

“I think I need a closer look to be sure.” Prax went to stand in front of Amos and examined him critically. “Hm...yes...hot stuff.” He slid his hands under the robe and around Amos’s back. 

“You have me at a disadvantage, Dr. Meng. Here I am all vulnerable and you’ve not even taken off your shoes.”

This situation was rectified and things progressed fast, only becoming derailed for a few minutes when they forgot where they were standing and fell into the hot tub. 

Afterward they lay on oversized pink towels with their feet dangling in the hot, bubbling water. “It was generous of the captain to do this for everyone,” said Prax, wondering if he’d ever felt so comfortable in his life before.

“He’s so happy to have us all back together that I think he’d explode if he didn’t have some kind of outlet.”

“Is he...” Prax hesitated, wondering how to frame the question. “Is he OK with having Clarissa Mao on the ship?”

Amos snorted. “Nope. But he’ll get used to it. Naomi’s working on him, so it’s only a matter of time.”

“Why is - why did you - ” Prax stopped again. There was so much he wanted to ask that he felt suffocated by it, but he did not want to disturb the equilibrium of their precious, fragile time together with accusing questions. _Why her? Why did you work so hard to save her? Why do you want her with you? Do you know how incredibly, incredibly jealous I am? What is she to you? What am I?_

Amos answered the questions the Prax couldn’t bring himself to ask. “I know. You must think I’m crazy, or two-timing you, or both. But it ain’t like that.” He rolled onto his side and propped himself up on one elbow, looking at Prax with earnest eyes. “You know how long it took me to come around to being with you, right? You’re...there’s only you. It’s never happened to me before and it’s - I still can’t quite believe it.”

“Believe what?”

“That you care about me like this. Anyway. I didn’t go down the well with the idea of busting her out. When I ended up not having to off anyone for Lydia’s sake I had some time on my hands, so I figured I stop by and visit Peaches. Let her see a friendly face. I like her. She reminds me of me. And when everything went to shit and the chance to break her loose came along, I took it. Sometimes a person gets a shot a new life, you know? This is her shot, and I want to make sure she gets it. Plus,” he gave a short laugh, “she’s a good technician. God knows we can use one of those on board, with the type of shit we get into on the regular.”

Prax sighed a long, long sigh. He knew that what Amos said, Amos meant. No more and no less. It could be infuriating - a lifetime of wondering “What do they really _mean_ by that?” during nearly every human interaction had trained him to look for subtext, and meeting a person who had none was unnerving. But as long as he remembered to tune his brain to Radio Amos, it was refreshing, too. 

Amos was right. It had taken them years of cautious maneuvering to get to the place where they now stood. Or rather, lay. On fluffy pink towels beside a heart-shaped hot tub. Prax could acknowledge the uniqueness of his position in Amos’s life without vanity; he’d been there for the entire process, after all. _And of the two of us, I’m the one who moved in with a woman first._

All the same, it was nice to hear.

“Say it again, would you?”

“Say what again?” said Amos, running a hand up and down Prax’s bare flank in an exploratory manner.

“That - stop it! - that it’s only me.”

Amos, bless him, didn’t laugh. He leaned over so that his forehead bumped against Prax’s and said: “You’re the fucking shit, Doc. There’s no one else.”

Prax smiled. “I love you, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I could have written more, believe it or not, but all things - even this chapter - must come to an end. But not this fic, not just yet...it’s sprouted a brief (I promise) epilogue, so stand by.
> 
> Also I had the “vegetable love” lines in my head for this fic for over a year now, and when I looked them up to see where they came from I was astonished to find that they came from “To His Coy Mistress,” the first line of which is the title to Avelera’s gorgeous Julie Mao/Miller fic [world enough and time](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9876131/chapters/22153469), which you should go read immediately. I guess that poem just radiates Expanse vibes. Who knew?
> 
> Also also: I can’t write smut. If anyone wants to have a shot at filling in the blanks, as it were, WELCOME TO IT.


	4. Epilogue: Ten Years Later

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prax is coming to live on the _Rocinante._ Unless something horrible happens first.

ALEX

Alex sat back in the pilot’s crash couch, savoring a bite of imitation beef jerky while a Johnny Cash tribute band blared “Folsom Prison Blues” over the cockpit speakers. All indicator lights were green across the board, and he wasn’t really worried that they’d sustained any damage from that meteoroid cloud, but he decided to ask anyway. _Because I care, baby,_ he thought, patting the console. He repositioned his headphones and flicked on his mic.

“How’s my girl lookin’, hoss?”

“Shipshape and Bristol fashion,” said Holden’s voice in his ears. “A couple of dings on the hull, but we can hammer those out no problem.”

“What’s the weather like out there?” said Clarissa on the master channel, joining the conversation from - Alex checked the crew status display - sick bay. Looked like Bobbie and Amos were with her. _What’s she doing there? I thought she was feeling better today. Oh, of course - they must be finishing up the greenwalls._

“Glorious. We’re thinking of putting down a blanket and having a picnic.” That was Naomi, doing the walk-around with the captain.

“Well, when you’re done, come back in and buckle up so we can start the burn for Callisto,” said Alex, shifting the jerky to one cheek and talking around it. “We got places to go, people to see.”

“Contracts to fulfill and money to make,” agreed Holden. “Not to mention a new crewmate to collect.”

“About time, too,” chimed in Bobbie. “Just think - that’ll almost put us at a humane personnel complement!”

Holden chuckled. “Better late than never, right?”

Alex wondered if Amos was going to weigh in - it was his fella they were scooping up, after all - but the mechanic stayed off the comms. _Too focused to chat, I guess, this close to the finish line._

Ever since Prax first gave him the idea, Amos had been the one to keep the greenwalls flourishing, giving them the same care and attention he devoted to the _Roci_ ’s non-organic components. He’d added more panels, a little at a time, until there were some on every deck. It was an incongruous hobby for a mechanic, but a no one complained; especially since they all benefited from the extra oxygen and fresh greens.

Three months ago, Prax had finally given them a concrete date for when he’d be able to come live on the _Roci_ , and Amos had gone from _hobbyist_ to _obsessed_. He rooted new seedlings by the hundred and set up new panels all over the ship, a modern-day version of the Babylonian king who turned his city into a garden to put a smile on his queen’s face.  
_The original terraformer._

Now they were a few hours away from Callisto, and Amos was working flat out to put the final touches on the Prax Panels in the med bay. Alex had even spent some time helping out until he’d had to resume the driver’s seat. _Kinda soothing. All those baby plants. Prax is gonna love it._

Love. There was no doubt in Alex’s mind that that was the motivating force behind Amos’s otherwise inexplicable enthusiasm for horticulture. Seeing it made Alex feel - not jealous, not exactly. He didn’t grudge either Prax or Amos what they’d found in each other. Wistful. Yes. That was it. Wistful and a bit sad that he’d never found someone to share his life so completely. 

He tried to picture either one of his exes changing careers and coming to live with him on the _Roci_ , but without much luck. It was too far-fetched. _Even if Talissa or Giselle had been willing to do it, the truth is I wouldn’t have wanted ‘em here._

That was a hard pill to swallow, but not a surprising one. He’d come to terms with the fact that he was a goddamn failure when it came to committed romantic relationships. _Now, Prax and Amos have kept this thing going for yonks, but it’s always been long-distance. Wonder how it’ll work out in close quarters, together day in and day out...that can put a strain on people even when they’re not sharin’ a bed._

He realized belatedly that Holden was talking again. He turned the music down and his headphones up so he could hear him better.

“...like the night of cloudless climes and starry skies; and all that’s best of dark and bright meet in her aspect and her eyes...”

Alex’s brow wrinkled. _What the hell?_ “Say again, hoss, I didn’t catch that.”

A pause.

“Shit,” said Holden, with deep feeling.

The master channel erupted with laughter.

“Jim,” said Naomi, when everyone had calmed down a little, “how many times do I have to tell you to double-check your settings _before_ getting mushy? I’m starting to think it’s intentional.”

“It isn’t! Swear to God it isn’t! I got carried away with Jupiter this close, and you right there - ”

“We can still hear you, Cap,” said Amos.

“GoodBYE,” said Holden, and his mic clicked off.

Alex was still chuckling over the incident, and reflecting that some folks made the whole shipboard romance thing work just fine, when Bobbie climbed up through the hatch. 

“Poor Cap,” she said, grinning broadly. “Can’t catch a break, that man.”

“Keeps life entertainin’ for the rest of us,” said Alex agreeably.

Bobbie collapsed into the gunner’s seat. “Remind me never to volunteer to help fill greenwalls again.” She held up her hands, displaying fingertips wrinkled and blanched from extended contact with water. “I look like a fucking raisin. Hey, is that jerky?”

“Nope,” said Alex, taking an ostentatious bite.

“Gimme.”

Alex slapped a strip of very-nearly-beef into Bobbie’s outstretched palm. “Want, want, want. That’s all I ever get from y’all.” 

“Thanks,” she said, flipping him off.

“Such a lady.”

“What can I say? My mama raised me right.”

Alex snorted and turned the music back up. His melancholy mood had lifted. _What was I so blue about, anyway? I’ve got my baby and I’ve got the gunny. My gals. I’m a lucky, lucky man._

BOBBIE

It wasn’t bad, as fake jerky went. Bobbie wondered where Alex had gotten it and resolved to buy him a few extra packs when she found out. 

She closed her eyes, listening to the click of her jaw as she chewed, Alex singing along to “A Boy Named Sue,” and the living hum of the ship underneath it all. _Wonder what Alex thinks about our soon-to-be med tech._

Adding a new person to a tight-knit crew could go wrong in a lot of ways, but in this case she was cautiously optimistic. The good opinion she’d formed of Prax way back during the Ganymede Shitshow had only solidified the longer she knew him. He was intelligent, loyal, determined, and a good father. He was also - for reasons she would never understand - completely, utterly gone on Amos Burton.

Bobbie laughed inwardly as she pictured the two men: Amos, hulking and breezily brutal, and Prax, with a slight, station-bred frame and permanently distracted expression. Nothing to indicate to the casual observer that between them existed a love that spanned galaxies. _But how will it work when suddenly compressed within the confines of a ship?_

Only time would tell - but she wasn’t really worried. A man willing to spend the past two years taking night classes in order to get his med tech certification wasn’t in it for the short haul, and it didn’t take a psychology degree to see that Amos’s ship-wide plant project was his equivalent of welcoming Prax with twelve dozen roses and enough champagne to float an armada. 

_There’s always a chance it won’t work out. Shit happens. People change. But I do believe this is going to be good for them. Good for everyone else too. Except, maybe..._

Bobbie took another bite of jerky and chewed it pensively. _Clarissa. Oh, Claire. I love her like she’s my sister, but I wonder how important the status quo is to her ability to function? We think of Amos as the unpredictable one, but Claire’s the real time bomb here. Two swipes of her tongue and she’d be able to take out any of us. Even Amos. Even me, if I don’t get to Betsy in time. How will she handle this new dynamic?_

She turned the question over in her mind, getting her usual half-guilty enjoyment from the frisson she felt at the thought of potential danger.

“Honey, we’re home,” said Holden over the master channel. 

_He sounds a little subdued,_ thought Bobbie with amusement. _Hope Naomi hasn’t been teasing him too much._

“Righto, hoss. Thirty minutes till I start the burn. Will you be joining me in my parlor?” Alex’s crash couch hissed on its gimbals as he turned to face Bobbie and winked. She knew he was thinking the same thing she was. If Holden came up to ops, he was in the doghouse. If he and Naomi went back to their berth together, well - 

“We’ll sit this one out in our cabin,” said Holden.

Bobbie raised her arms and mouthed “Score!”

“Sure thing. Catch you on the flip side.” Alex dropped the connection and gave Bobbie a high five. “Way to go, Cap!”

“Lord Byron would be proud,” said Bobbie, and then groaned. “Dear God, I can’t believe I was able to identify that shitty poem. Look what your stupid book club’s done to me, Alex. What have I become?”

“Literate?”

“Shut up and give me another piece of jerky.”

HOLDEN

“Ready to go back in?”

Silence.

“Naomi?” He clicked his mic on and off a few times to make sure it was working. “Can you hear me?”

More silence.

 _Maybe there’s a problem with her radio,_ he thought, and was about to tap her on the shoulder when he heard her sigh and say:

“Yeah, I’m ready.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m emotionally preparing myself for the harassment you’ve let us in for.”

 _Oh._ “Naomi, I’m sorry. I got carried away - caught up in the moment - forgot to double check my comm settings.”

He could see her smiling through her faceplate as they neared the airlock. “God, you are such an Earther. _Always_ double-check, and then check again. Remember - it’s not OCD in space, it’s common sense.”

“I know, I know - I try, I really do.”

They were at the airlock door. It opened even before Holden could ask Alex to let them in. “Thanks, cowboy,” said Holden, after making sure (several times) that he was on the right channel. He followed Naomi into the airlock and they stood patiently, waiting for it to cycle.

“Still,” said Naomi, removing her helmet when the inner doors slid apart to admit them to the ship, “it was a nice poem.”

“It was, wasn’t it?” said Holden, feeling suddenly pleased with himself. “There’s more to it, you know. If you wanted to hear the rest.”

“I might. If you can hold it in until we’re in our cabin, that is.”

“I can think of a time when you weren’t so anxious for me to hold it in,” said Holden, helping her out of her vac suit. “In this very room, if I recall correctly.”

“I got carried away. Caught up in the moment. You know how it is.”

“Har har.” He watched her peel off the inner layer of the suit with frank admiration. “You know, you’re even more beautiful than you were then. How’s that even possible? Are you a witch?”

“Nope. Your eyesight’s failing with age.” She kissed him quickly, ducked away before he could grab her, and started pulling on her coverall.

“Flatterer.” Holden pushed a button on the wall panel speaker and said: “Honey, we’re home.”

“Righto, hoss,” responded Alex. “Thirty minutes till I start the burn. Will you be joining me in my parlor?”

Holden looked inquiringly at Naomi. She finished zipping up the front of her coverall, smiled devastatingly, and unzipped it again to the middle of her sternum. 

“I’ll think we’ll sit this one out in our cabin,” he told Alex. He hoped he sounded like a man making a rational choice and not like a man falling all over himself to get some alone time with a two-meter-tall siren. 

“Sure thing. Catch you on the flip side,” said Alex. Holden could hear him grinning. _Damn Martian._

“Cheer up, Jim,” said Naomi. “As soon as Prax arrives everyone will be so busy laughing at him and Amos being all soppy that they won’t even notice us anymore.”

“True,” said Holden, and then gave an involuntary twitch.

“What?”

“Nothing - just wondering what those two might consider soppy. We’re in for some interesting times.”

“No shit. Did I tell you about the time I walked in on them in the bathroom at Prax’s place?”

“Uh, no. When was this?”

“When we were there for the girls’ graduation a couple months ago. Prax was shaving Amos’s - ”

“Is this something I really want to hear, or should it wait until I’m older?”

“It wasn’t anything nasty. He was shaving Amos’s neck - ”

“Ah. Weird, but not nasty. Carry on.”

“ - with a cutthroat razor.” 

“One of those old-fashioned straightedge ones?”

“Yeah.” 

“Wonder where he learned to use that?”

“God knows. But Amos was...” She shook her head. “I’ve never seen him so - let’s go with ‘excited.’ ”

“Damn,” said Holden, pausing in the act of shrugging into his own coverall. “You mean it was a kinky thing?”

Naomi lifted her hands in a gesture that encompassed everything from _I don’t know_ to _I don’t give a flying fuck_. “I didn’t ask, but it seemed fairly obvious.” She grinned wickedly. “You’re looking a little preoccupied, Captain Holden. Should we ask Prax if he brought his razor when we see him? See if he gives lessons?”

“No! Hell no.” _At least not right away,_ amended a part of his brain that found the concept of a straightedge shave (administered by, say, his XO) very intriguing indeed. “Anyway. Shall we clear our heads with a few words from Lord Byron?”

Naomi linked her arm through his. “I thought you’d never ask.”

CLARISSA

Clarissa heard Holden and Naomi laughing as they passed the sick bay. _Guess Naomi didn’t really mind too much about the poetry, then._

She selected another cutting from the tray and inserted it into a pod on the Prax Panel in front of her. The hydrogel immediately closed around the tender roots and stem, giving it the nourishment and stability it would need to survive the rigors of space travel.

 _Two hundred and eight. Nearly there._ The back wall of the med bay had three of Amos’s custom-designed panels mounted on it, bringing a welcome splash of green into the black-and-silver color palette of the room. The panels held mostly ferns, bred for their air-filtering qualities, but also herbs - rosemary, chamomile, mint, sage, lavender. _And pot. Don’t forget the pot._ Amos had brought those particular seedlings on board during their most recent stop at Ceres, his eyes daring someone - anyone - to make the first comment. 

So far, no one had. Naomi had burst into laughter when she noticed the little plants with their delicate, sawtoothed leaves. Holden turned up not long afterward, but all he’d done was look around, sigh theatrically, and walk away shaking his head.

Everyone had heard the story of Prax’s ethically dubious beginnings in botany - mainly because Amos thought it was hilarious, and brought it up at the slightest provocation. So it made perfect sense that he’d chosen to work a dozen marijuana seedlings into his Welcome Aboard gift. But no one had actually _said_ anything, so there was still plausible deniability.

 _It’s hard to believe that there’s still regulations on this stuff,_ thought Clarissa, tucking another seedling into place. _With the protomolecule in the mix, it seems like we should have bigger fish to fry._

She hummed as she worked, not noticing when she shifted from humming to singing until Amos (industriously filling the last few rows on his own panel) said: “You sound happy.”

Clarissa broke off in the middle of the chorus to “Con te partirò.” “I am.” 

“What about?”

She took a breath to nerve herself, then said: “I could ask you the same thing.” 

Her friendship with Amos consisted mostly of long stretches of comfortable quiet. Often they would spend an entire shift in each other’s company without exchanging more than a dozen words. She liked it that way. But it made it hard to break the habit of silence when she wanted to talk about something, such as Amos’s mood of the past week. He’d been on his usual pre-seeing-Prax high when his spirits had taken an abrupt dive. He’d kept on working just as hard, but Clarissa had learned to detect the differences in his silences, and this one had been downright morose. 

Until a few hours ago, that is. He’d gone to his cabin (shortly to be his and Prax’s), and when he’d come back to finish the greenwalls he’d been like a different person. Or rather, like the person he usually was. She wondered what had happened - if he’d talked to Naomi, if he’d gotten another message from Prax, if he’d respond to her hint and tell her. 

He didn’t. Instead he smiled his cheerful smile, thumped her on the back, and picked up another seedling. “Go on singing, Peaches. I like it.”

 _Better than nothing,_ she thought, and began singing again. 

Her performance would have horrified her old voice instructor - long disuse had played havoc with her range, and she had to slur over forgotten lyrics - but the combination of Italian, English, and over-the-top emotion suited her mood and amplified it. She felt...effervescent. Like her veins bubbled and sparkled with champagne instead of black market chemical leakage. _Prax is coming. He’s going to live with us. Him and Amos, right here with me, for always._

Her voice wavered on the chorus as a laugh tried to force its way out - laughter at the memory of the day when Mei turned out to be a bridge, not a wall.

SIX YEARS EARLIER

“Hey Peaches, want anything from the galley? Cuppa tea?”

“No, thank you,” said Clarissa, sparing Amos a glance before returning her attention to the machine shop wall monitor. 

“Right. Back in a few minutes. C’mon, Doc!” This last was delivered over his shoulder as he headed for the keel ladder. Prax followed him. Clarissa thought he looked over at her as he went, but she was concentrating on the diagnostic readouts and could convincingly act like she hadn’t seen him.

Not that she disliked Prax. It would have been simpler if she had. Then she could avoid him and be done with it. But she didn’t want to avoid him.

Bluntly put: he was the kind of father she’d always wanted. When Amos showed her bits of the messages he got from Prax she watched them gladly, absorbing Prax’s stories, voice, and mannerisms with a feeling that was almost hunger. 

But then there was Mei. Mei, who could have been a younger, happier version of Clarissa herself. Mei, the daughter of Prax, who loved her. Mei, whose kidnapping had been orchestrated by Clarissa’s father. Mei, the walking, talking reminder of everything that was wrong with the Mao family - a family led by a man who sacrificed everything to his ambition, his own children as readily as other people’s. It was more than an awkward fact. It was a barrier she didn’t know how to pass.

So whenever they docked at Ganymede - Holden found reasons to do so as often as possible, the sentimental bastard - she made sure to stay well away from the Mengs. 

Usually this wasn’t difficult, since Amos and Prax tended to go off on their own. But sometimes interaction was unavoidable, and then Clarissa had to work harder to efface herself. 

Like right now. They’d arrived on Ganymede the day before, ostensibly to pick up a shipment of dehydrated corn for transport to Medina Station. After their usual crowded and raucous dinner with Prax, Djuna, and the girls, the _Roci_ crew returned to the ship, leaving Amos to spend the night with Prax. He’d returned this morning with Prax in tow - and Mei, too, though she had immediately disappeared into ops to play sim games with Alex and Bobbie. 

Clarissa had nodded and smiled at them when they came in, despite the sickening push-pull of _hide!_ and _hug him!_ that always overtook her when she was in the same room as Prax, and retreated to her corner of the shop to carry on with her tasks. Amos had opened up one of the brand-new microflora-based air recyclers to give Prax a better look at its inner workings. The two of them had had their heads in the duct for the last forty-five minutes, discussing the new tech and flirting. 

She liked hearing Amos like this - relaxed, laughing, even silly - but she had to admit she was glad when they went up to the galley. _Silence is golden._

Except it wasn’t silent. No sooner had the sounds of Prax and Amos’s boots on the ladder rungs faded away than there came more footsteps from the direction of the lift. Clarissa looked up, expecting to see Holden and Naomi, back from from their stroll through the marketplace, and saw Mei Meng. She was holding a bulb of some hot-pink beverage and looking at Clarissa with curiosity. 

“Why ‘Peaches’?” said the girl.

“Uh - what?” _Such a gift for repartee,_ said Clarissa’s inner monologue, in Jules-Pierre’s voice. 

“Why does Amos call you that? Most of his nicknames make sense. Doc, Cap - obvious. Babs is short for Roberta. Naomi’s Boss because of course. But ‘Peaches’? Is it an inside joke, or what?” Mei crossed the workshop as she talked and leaned against the table nearest Clarissa. “Sorry. I know you’re busy. But I saw you in here and figured I’d ask. I’ve always wondered.”

“No, it’s OK,” said Clarissa, realizing as she said it that it was indeed OK. _I am talking to Mei. I have not spontaneously dissolved into a pool of guilt and stomach acid._ “I, uh, thought you were in ops with Alex and Bobbie.”

“Yeah, I was, but I got thirsty so I went to the galley, and then I wanted to see what Dad and Amos were doing. I guess I missed them.” Mei grinned. Her adult teeth still looked too large for her face. Clarissa wondered exactly how old she was. “So why does he call you Peaches?”

“I don’t really know. He started when they were bringing me back from the Ring after - after all that. I never asked why, and now I’m just used to it. I don’t know if he even has a reason.”

“Maybe I’ll ask him, then.” Mei scratched her nose with the tip of her bulb. “Not that I can pass remarks about nicknames. He still calls me ‘pumpkin’ and I’m not orange or round.”

Clarissa smiled. “True.”

“What are you doing?” said Mei, turning her attention to the monitor and its endlessly scrolling data.

Clarissa tried to think back to what she had been like at that age ( _Thirteen? Twelve?_ ) in order to gauge how much detail to include in her response. “I’m running diagnostics on the ship’s environmental systems to make sure everything’s running at peak efficiency.”

“Have you found anything wrong yet?”

“No, but the data’s still compiling.”

“Are you expecting any problems?”

“Not really. But I want to be sure. I like doing it while we’re docked, so that if there’s anything wrong I can deal with it without worrying about accidentally killing us all while we’re on the float.”

Mei nodded, clearly trying to look serious and grownup. “Do you like living on the _Roci_? I mean, don’t you get claustrophobic?”

“Can’t say that I do. I’ve lived in much smaller spaces,” said Clarissa, and Mei looked horrified, no doubt realizing she’d inadvertently referenced Clarissa’s time in the Pit. 

“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean - ”

“Hey, don’t worry about it.” Clarissa touched Mei’s shoulder briefly with her fingertips. “I know that’s not what you meant. I love it here. It’s home. A home that travels with me, and a family too.”

“That must be a nice change. I can’t imagine it was very homey, growing up with Jules-Pierre Mao for a dad,” said Mei, and then slapped a hand over her mouth. “Augh! Sorry! Mom’s right, I was born with my foot in my mouth - OK, I’m going before I say anything else - ”

To her own surprise, Clarissa found herself trying to convince the girl to stay. “It’s fine! Don’t apologize. I should be the one saying sorry. After all, it’s my father who had you kidnapped.”

Halfway to the door, Mei paused. “Ha! That’s true. I hadn’t thought of that before.”

“I have.” 

Mei looked at her thoughtfully. “Is that why you always avoid us? Dad and me?”

 _Damn. She noticed._ “Well, yes. I assumed you’d want nothing to do with me.”

“You assumed wrong, then.” Mei seemed to have gotten over her embarrassment. “I guess I did too. I thought you didn’t like us.”

Clarissa shook her head. _If only you knew, kiddo._ “Definitely not that.”

“And we don’t blame you for what your dad did. We know you had nothing to do with that. Amos wouldn’t like you so much if you’d wanted me and the other kids turned into monsters.”

Clarissa nodded slowly. “That’s...that’s true.” _Amos Burton, character reference extraordinaire._

“Anyway,” Mei went on, “as weird as it sounds, I’ve got fond memories of your dad. He was pretty much the only grownup who was nice to me while I was on Io. He reminded my of my grandpa - until he really, really didn’t.”

Clarissa laughed, feeling a sudden kinship with the girl. “I can relate to that.”

“Mei! What are you doing down here?”

Prax was standing in the doorway, a drink bulb in each hand. He looked from Mei to Clarissa with astonishment - understandably enough, considering that they’d never interacted before. _How much of our conversation did he overhear?_

“Hi, Dad,” said Mei, unperturbed. “Is one of those for me? I’ve already got one.”

“No, it’s for Clarissa.” 

Now it was her turn to be astonished. Prax came over and held a bulb out to her. “I know you said you didn’t want anything, but Amos told me to bring you this anyway. Ginger tea. Does that sound right?”

She reached for it automatically, looking him in the face for the first time in real life. _A good face,_ she thought. _He looks older than in the recordings, and nicer._ “Thank you,” she managed, again wondering what he had heard.

Prax didn’t leave her wondering. “So. I caught a bit of what you and Mei were talking about. You’ve been afraid of what we thought of you?”

“...yes.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t make it clearer that I don’t hold your father’s actions against you. I didn’t know it was weighing on your mind. I just had the impression that you didn’t, well - ”

“Didn’t like us,” supplied Mei, grinning. “We’ve been over that, Dad. You didn’t start eavesdropping soon enough.”

Clarissa snorted. “Given the amount of time Amos spends talking about you guys, I’d have to either love you or hate you by this point - no middle ground. And I certainly don’t hate you.” She bit her tongue, aware that she’d just declared her love for them by default, but neither of them seemed off-put.

“Good,” said Prax, chuckling - a little nervously, which made Clarissa feel better. He glanced at Mei, who had wandered off to the other side of the machine shop. “Did Amos ever tell you that he once offered to break my neck and throw me out an airlock if I’d done - some things I’d been accused of doing to Mei?”

Clarissa shook her head, at a loss for words.

“Well, he did. And you probably know what he did to Strickland.”

“Yeah. He mentioned that.”

“So. I mean. I know he’s got a low tolerance for anyone who tries to hurt her. If he’s OK with you, so am I.” He ran a hand back and forth through his hair in a gesture that hundreds of recordings had made familiar to her. “What I’m getting at is, you don’t have to hide every time Mei or I come into the room.”

Clarissa felt her face getting hot. _Am I actually blushing? God, I didn’t know I could still do that._ Prax looked like he was waiting for her to say something, so she did. “OK. I won’t. I guess we’re all part of this weird little family now, aren’t we?”

He smiled, and his eyes were warm. “Yes. Yes, we are.”

That had been, as the old saying went, the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Outwardly, their interactions didn’t change much. Clarissa would never be outgoing or talkative, and she didn’t push herself forward on the occasions when they were on Ganymede. She didn’t think Prax had any idea how important he was in life, and she was fine with that. But knowing that he didn’t despise or resent her - that Mei liked her - that she was welcome in their home - that they cared enough to include messages specifically for her in their recordings to Amos - made a huge difference in her mental weather. They cared. _He_ cared. 

And that was why Clarissa sang.

NAOMI

Jim insisted on reciting the whole poem over again from the beginning. She protested, but only as a matter of form - in truth, she’d come to tolerate, and then to appreciate, Jim’s fondness for the poetry of Earth. Any remaining irritation she felt towards him melted away as he wound the coils of her hair around his fingers, rambling on about “the nameless grace which waves in every raven tress.” He reached for her when he was done, and she reached back with enthusiasm.

Afterward, Naomi lay back with a satisfied sigh, pushing her hair ( _raven tresses_ ) out of her face. “Ahhh. I needed that.”

“Me too,” said Jim, curled against her with his hand on her hip. 

They stayed there quietly, enjoying the warmth of each other’s skin with no barriers between them, until Alex’s voice came over the wall speaker.

“Ten minutes to the burn, ladies and gents, ten minutes.”

“Damn,” said Naomi, sitting up. “I have to pee.”

“‘Where thoughts serenely do express,’” said Jim, and she swatted his bare ass. “Ow!”

She untangled their coveralls from where they had ended up in a pile on the floor, and tossed Jim’s at his head. “Get dressed, you degenerate. Unless you want to do this burn naked.”

“Tempting, but no.” 

On her way to the head she passed the door to Amos’s cabin. _Amos and Prax’s cabin,_ she corrected herself. The door was shut, but she knew that the layout of the room behind it was the same as her and Jim’s. There the resemblance ended, however. Amos had covered every available surface in Prax Panels, transforming the spartan space into a symphony in the key of green. 

She’d spent some time in there only a few hours earlier - not to admire the foliage, but to have a chat with Amos. He’d been a bit moody lately. And not in the overexcited-two-year-old-at-a-birthday-party way that he usually was before seeing Prax again, either. The closest thing she could compare it to was the time he’d gone all cold and shut down on their first trip out to Ilus.

So, when she’d glanced into his cabin and seen him sitting on the edge of his couch, staring at the floor, she’d pushed her mental to-do list aside and rapped on the doorframe.

“Hey, Boss,” Amos had said, looking up as though he’d expected her. “What’s up?”

There was no point beating around the bush with Amos. “I was wondering what’s been bothering you lately.”

“Nothing much.”

“Sure? Usually you’re damn near insufferable when we’re about to meet up with Prax. Calling him every ten minutes, making sure he knows our arrival time, packing whatever ridiculous gifts you’ve gotten for him...but you’re...different, this time around. What’s going on? Are you...not ready for this? For him moving in with us?”

Amos snorted. “Now that would be a dick move. Get the guy to switch careers and head to Callisto so we can pick him up, then tell him ‘just kidding’? Cold. You think that’s what’s happening here?”

She sat down beside him. “Of course not. But this is a huge change. It’s normal to feel apprehensive, to have doubts.”

He had shaken his big, bald head at this. “Naw. I ain’t doubtful. I want him here more than anything. To have him with me, sharing my berth, working alongside me again...it’s so much more than I ever expected.”

“But it’s not exactly a surprise, is it? You guys have been planning this for years.”

“I know.” He’d looked as close to sheepish as she’d ever seen him. “But I’ve held off from thinking about it. _Really_ thinking about it, I mean. I’ve imagined it and shit, but now it’s not imaginary. The room’s ready, the plants are all in except for those last coupla panels in sick bay, and there’s nothing left to do except go and get him, and I can’t stop feeling like it ain’t gonna happen. I can’t get excited, because it’s all going to go wrong at the last minute. He’ll change his mind, or the reactor on his transport will explode, or some nutcase will glass Callisto...” He’d gripped his own knees convulsively. “It’s all going to blow away like smoke.”

“If it was anyone else, I’d say that you were afraid,” she’d said, as gently as she could.

“Maybe I am. It’s been so long since I’ve been scared that I don’t have any fucking clue what that feels like.”

“What do you feel like, exactly?”

“Like I want to puke. And punch somebody.” He’d flashed her his friendly grin. “Not you. But I think it could be - maybe because it’s so close to being real.” 

“What is?”

“Everything I’ve ever wanted.” His eyes met hers, wide and blank. “There’s a reason I avoid this shit. I can’t handle it.”

“I’ve got news for you, Amos. You can handle it. You’ve been handling it for a long time. This is happening. We’re going to get Prax, and he’s going to be so amazed at how you’ve turned the _Roci_ into a jungle that he’s going to pass out, and you’ll have carry him across the threshold of this cabin like he’s a goddamn blushing bride.” That got him laughing. As an afterthought, she’d added: “And if your fears come true and something bad happens, well, that’ll mean someone’s ass needs kicking, and that’ll help you feel better too.” 

That part had been meant as a joke too, but it seemed to resonate with Amos more than anything she had said so far. His forehead smoothed, and his eyes lost their empty look. “Yeah, Boss. That’s a good point. Hey - ain’t you supposed to be doing the walk-around with Cap?”

And that had been the end of their talk.

Now, as she made her way back to her and Jim’s cabin, she thought: _I sure hope this pickup goes smoothly. If anything goes wrong, Amos might...God. He might do anything._

AMOS

He stood outside The Tenacious Spanner, one of Callisto’s borderline reputable bars, and scanned the crowd as it ebbed and flowed through the Y-shaped concourse. _He’s here somewhere. He’s got to be. Don’t fucking lose it._ His hand terminal chirped, making his pulse jump, but when he checked the screen it was only Holden, looking tense. _Shit._

“Any sign of him?” said Holden.

“Nope. Barkeep said he was in here for a while - sat in the corner with a beer and stared at his hand terminal the whole time - but he settled up about an hour ago and took off.”

“Shit.”

“My thoughts exactly.”

“You definitely told him to wait for you at the Spanner?”

Amos wanted to say _What the fuck do you take me for?_ but, knowing that Holden was stressed out and trying to help, went with “Yeah.”

“Well, we know the _Tamarack_ got here on schedule, and his name’s on the passenger manifest. So he’s somewhere on station. He’s still not answering your calls?”

“He surely is not,” said Amos, looking at his notifications to be sure. They gave him the same information they had the last time he checked (three minutes ago): four outgoing calls, five text messages, and two recordings sent to Praxidike Meng in the past hour. No responses. In fact, his most recent attempts hadn’t even gone through. _Unable to complete your call at this time,_ as his hand terminal helpfully informed him.

Holden was going on about Bobbie contacting the security goons and getting permission to look at their surveillance footage, but Amos was only half listening. He’d known, just _known_ that some Bad Thing was going to happen to keep him from Prax. And here it was. 

“...meet us at the security office?” Holden was saying.

Amos shook his head, smiling. “No, thanks. I’m going to keep looking on my own.”

“Understood. Good hunting, and keep me posted.”

“Sure, Cap.” Amos put his hand terminal away and stepped into the crowd.

He let his gaze roam, unfocused but receptive to anything that would ping his instincts, however slightly. Up and down the concourse he walked, passing storefronts and flophouses and employment booths and food carts, trying to picture what Prax would be drawn to. _Not the brothels. Not the casinos._ That narrowed the field considerably. _Maybe he was hungry, got something to eat, sat down somewhere, lost track of time._ That didn’t account for the non-response to his messages and calls. 

Things that could account for it: _Mugged. Unconscious. Dead._

Amos was planning how he would track down the murderers and what he would do to them when his hindbrain kicked him. He’d passed something important, but what?

Retracing his steps, it didn’t take him long to find it: a collection of scraggly trees in big metal planters, arranged in a semicircle around an eating area in what was probably an attempt at some garden ambiance. The planters were covered in flyers and graffiti, which spoiled the effect a bit, but they still contained definite, living trees. The first he’d seen in this part of Callisto. 

_If anything in here caught Doc’s eye, this would be it._

Amos wove his way between the tables, scanning the people who sat around them: a handful of ice buckers sleeping something off (mint liquor, by the smell of it); two women engaged in a timed chess match; some poor idiot weeping over his half-eaten pizza; but no little botanist-turned-med-tech with silver hair.

With a sinking heart and rising adrenaline, Amos held himself to an unhurried walk and went around the other side of the curved line of planters. The trees leaned out over this side, some of their lower limbs nearly sweeping the floor.

A pair of legs stuck out from underneath the branchy canopy.

PRAX

Prax sat at a tiny table in the darkest corner of The Tenacious Spanner. He’d been there for a couple of hours, nursing a mushroomy beer, watching and re-watching the messages that had come in while he was on the transport over from Ganymede.

Djuna and Elise, sitting together in their new apartment, sent him their best wishes and promises of welcome whenever he and the crew were in the neighborhood. He couldn’t help smiling at how they looked at each other, and how often. _Newlyweds. Adorable._

His parents said that they hoped he was making the right decision ( _Code for “we think you’re making a huge mistake,”_ he thought wryly) and that they’d be glad to have him stay with them if he ever needed a place to retrench. _At least they didn’t come right out and say that they think I’m nuts. Which I might very well be._

Natalia and Mei’s message made him a little teary - not because the girls were emotional about his midlife crisis (as Mei insisted on calling it), but because they weren’t. Not particuarly. They were both so absorbed in their first semester of university on Luna that his new life was only one point of interest among many.

This wasn’t a bad thing. It was precisely what he’d hoped for when he’d planned his move to the _Roci_ for this period in his family’s life. He listened to his daughters talk about their roommates, classes, and dining hall food, and he was glad; but his eyes grew damp all the same.

Amos’s message featured the mechanic updating him on their cabin (finished), an estimate for their time of arrival on Callisto (an hour and a half to go), and a request that Prax be careful. “You’re the smartest guy I know, but smart guys can do some dumb shit. Callisto ain’t Ganymede. Watch your step, and stay at the Spanner.”

Amos’s concern was charming and a little offensive. _I’m doing all right. I got here on my own, didn’t I? I rented a locker for my luggage as soon as I arrived, and found the Spanner without getting lost. But I don’t know if I can face another hour and a half of avoiding eye contact with everyone while listening to Belter rap played too loudly over scratchy speakers._

He rebelled. 

_I’m just going to kill some time,_ he reasoned, paying his tab and walking out of the bar. _I’ll be back in plenty of time to meet him. It’s not like I’m going to explore the seedy underbelly of the shipyards. I’ll stay in well-lit, well-populated areas. I’ll be fine._

He let his feet take him where they wanted, charting a wandering course that took him from one side of the commercial district to the other. Music pounding from every doorway, multilingual announcements blaring over the PA system, and the general hubbub of thousands of voices speaking at once beat against his eardrums. The neon lights of the shops and bars made an equally vicious assault against his eyes. He felt he might have made a tactical error in leaving what now seemed like the peaceful oasis of the Spanner.

He let the press of the crowd wash him up against a blank stretch of wall and stood looking over the mass of humanity, thinking about how alone he was in this moment. The responsibilities that had steadied and bound him for so long - for his whole life - to Ganymede, to Djuna, to Natalia, to Mei - were gone. Not because he’d wrenched himself loose, but because that time had come to its natural conclusion. He was now separate from it, like ripe fruit that dropped from a tree.

It was a rather melancholy thought, when he considered what happened to fallen fruit. But the sadness of ending was tempered by the excitement of beginnings - seeds ready to sprout into some new version of himself. 

At this exact moment, however, he was neither one nor the other. It was rather exciting, really. 

He plunged back into the crowd with new energy, heading for a cart he had seen earlier that claimed to make the best chai on Callisto.

 _I’m not sure what the competition on this moon is like,_ he thought, sipping carefully at his purchase a few minutes later, _but this is pretty damn good._ He kept moving, savoring the hot, sweet, milky, spicy tea as he walked.

His good mood lasted about half an hour before it vanished, leaving him tired, needing to pee, and with a headache germinating at the base of his skull. _Where the hell is the Spanner?_ he wondered. He now wanted nothing more than to get back there, use their facilities, and park on a barstool until Amos arrived.

He’d gotten so turned around that it took him a moment to realize that the Spanner was at the opposite end of the concourse. _I don’t think I can make it that far,_ he thought, and steeled himself to use the next public toilet he came across.

After doing so, he emerged from its badly-lit interior (apparently designed to actively discourage people from using it) and began the trek back to his point of origin.

He’d gotten about halfway when he stopped in his tracks, arrested by a familiar smell. It was a smell he didn’t even know he’d missed until then - the smell of green, living things, of good humus and compost. He looked around with mounting urgency until he spotted it - a curved row of trees in planters. _Pinus sylvestris._

He hurried over to the trees with the sensation of having found old friends. Not caring how it might look to anyone watching, he touched the needles of the nearest tree, rolling them between his fingers to release the sharp, clean smell. His headache felt better already.

The lower branches of some of the trees hung down over the edge of their planters. If he sat down on the floor and leaned back like _this,_ they drooped over his head, forming a fragrant screen from his surroundings. He closed his eyes, drinking in the familiar smell through every pore. It was almost possible to imagine that he was home on Ganymede.

God, he was tired. How long had it been since he’d had a solid night’s sleep? Between preparations for Djuna and Elise’s wedding, exams and practicals for his med tech certification, wrapping up his work in the ag dome, and getting the girls safely off to Luna, it had been a stressful couple of months. And of course he hadn’t slept well on the transport. No one ever did.

 _I’ll sit here and rest a bit,_ he thought. _I’ve got my hand terminal set to alert me when the_ Roci _is about to dock._

He slept.

He dreamed.

He dreamed he was explaining the benefits of mushroom beer in hydroponics lines to the man behind the bar. The patrons in the room behind him agreed and poured their drinks into the planters they were using as tables. The bartender argued that it would make the plants drunk, and grew so heated that he seized Prax by the shoulders and shook him, shook him hard - 

\- and it wasn’t a dream, someone _was_ shaking him, their fingers digging into his shoulders, their face backlit so that all he could see was the gleam of teeth.

In that terror-spiked fraction of a second, he forgot every self-defense technique he’d ever learned - all except for four words delivered off-handedly once upon a time by Amos Burton. _Go for the eyes._

Prax jabbed haphazardly at his attacker’s face, his fingers at rigid as he could make them. The pressure on his shoulders vanished as the man reeled back, cursing. Pine branches raking over his head and shoulders, Prax scrambled to his feet and bolted - or tried to. Before he’d gotten more than three steps someone grabbed his ankle, sending him sprawling. 

He kicked out wildly with his free foot and made contact, resulting in the sudden release of his ankle and an increase in violent swearing. He’d raised himself to his hands and knees when the hands were on him again, and he was flat on his face, pinned helplessly beneath an immense weight. _This is it. This is how I die._

Then the weight lifted. He was still pinned, but at least he could breathe. And hear. He could hear -

“Jesus _fuck_ , Doc, calm down!”

Prax twisted, trying to get a look over his shoulder. “ _Amos?_ ”

His assailant let go and rolled off to one side. Prax struggled into a sitting position and stared. Yes, it was Amos, with one eye red and swollen, his bottom lip split open, bright blood running down his chin and into his beard, and laughing like he was having the time of his life. “Yep. You’re quite the scrapper, you know that?”

Prax was paralyzed with horror. “Amos! Oh God, Amos, I am so sorry! I had no idea it was you!”

“I should damn well hope not, if that’s the greeting I get.” Grinning redly, Amos wiped the blood off his chin, so obviously full of good humor that the crowd that had collected around them in hopes of seeing a fight began to drift away, grumbling. “Sorry ‘bout the rude awakening. I didn’t mean to startle you. But I was going crazy trying to track you down, and when I found you like that you looked - I wasn’t sure you were OK, so I kinda grabbed you. Which reminds me.” He suddenly looked less happy. “Why the ever-loving fuck have you been ignoring my calls? You can’t have been sleeping as hard as all that.”

“No, I - I dozed off, I didn’t mean to, but - did you get here early?” Prax still felt a little behind on current events. He reached for his hand terminal to check the time.

“Nope.”

“I don’t understand - I had an alert set to go off and - where is that thing?” His hand terminal wasn’t in its usual pocket, or in any of the other pockets he checked. “Damn! Maybe it fell out when I was - ”

“ - trying to beat the shit out of me?”

Prax was down on his hands and knees, peering under the planters. “Ah, it’s too dark to see. Can you call me, try to get its screen to light up?”

“I’ll try, but my last calls haven’t even gone through.” Amos tapped his own terminal. “Yeah, it’s not connecting. My bet is that someone pinched it during your nap.”

Prax sat back on his heels, aghast. “Shit! Really? All my messages were on there! And all my notes and photos!”

“Relax. It’s all backed up on your account. We’ve got some spares on the ship. I’ll hook you up. Unless you want to try to find whoever took yours?”

“No, no. I’m sure it’s been wiped and sold or whatever it is they do with them by now. And beating the thief to a pulp won’t help anything.”

“It’d make me feel better,” said Amos. “I’ve been strung a little tight lately.”

“I could just kick you in the face again. It’d be quicker.” 

Amos’s grin sharpened. “That helped, I won’t lie.”

Prax grinned back, then had an abrupt turn of mood. “What am I doing? You’re literally dripping with blood - because of my stupid overreaction - and I’m here worrying about my hand terminal! Some med tech I’m going to be!” 

“Chill, Doc, I’m fine.”

“No. Let me clean you up.” 

“Yes sir, Mr Medic, sir,” said Amos, saluting. “Hey, where’s your bags and shit? Did that get lifted too?”

“It’s in a locker.”

“Good. Guess you’re only partially incompetent.” He winked with his undamaged eye. “So what are you planning to do it? Kiss it and make it better?”

“I have a travel first aid kit,” said Prax, pulling the little pouch out of a cargo pocket. “Not worth stealing, I guess.”

“You are such a fucking nerd.”

“Shut up. It was a present from Djuna. You’re the first person I get to use it on - which she’ll think is hilarious.”

“Especially when you tell her why I needed it.”

“Stop reminding me. All right, hold still.” Amos held still while Prax swabbed his chin and beard with antiseptic wipes. “I feel like the biggest idiot in the system.”

“Why? Ow.”

“Sorry. Do you even need to ask? Not only did I miss meeting up with you, I did it by falling asleep and getting robbed - and then I capped it off by poking you in the eye and kicking you in the face. Not a stellar beginning to my new life.”

“I think it’s fucking fantastic.” Amos seemed perfectly sincere, despite his reddened eye and his beard drying into matted spikes of his own blood.

“Care to elaborate?”

“I’ll be honest, Doc - I’ve been having a hell of a hard time getting my head around this whole you-moving-in thing. It seemed too good to be true - and when you didn’t turn up at the Spanner I was sure you’d gotten yourself killed or some shit like that. But now?” His laugh rang out, as big and uninhibited as Amos himself. “Only reality hurts this bad. I am fucking convinced!”

Prax couldn’t help smiling in spite of his mortification. “You’re one in a million, Amos.”

“Damn right.”

Soon most the blood had been moved from Amos’s face to the impressive pile of used wipes that had collected on the ground beside them. Prax thought of the first time he’d patched Amos up on the _Roci,_ and how Amos had looked with his coverall unzipped and hanging around his hips, naked from the waist up...he remembered joking about chlorophyll, trying to keep his mind from wandering. _The more things change, the more they stay the same._

“There,” he said. “That’s the best I can do for now, but at least people won’t run screaming when they see you.” Then, moved by some mischievous impulse, Prax leaned close and kissed Amos’s lower lip. “All better.”

“Fuck yeah,” said Amos, looking pleased. “Sick bay’s going to be a popular place.”

“Very funny.”

“Now it’s your turn.”

“My turn for what?”

“Doctoring up. You skinned your hands, and there’s a nice bruise coming on the side of your face - must be from when I knocked you down.”

Prax looked at his hands and felt the side of his face in surprise. “Huh. You’re right. I didn’t even feel it until now. But I’m not bleeding, so I don’t need - “ He broke off as Amos took his hands, turned them palm up, and kissed the abraded areas with careful tenderness. “Oh.” 

Amos wasn’t done. He was kissing his way along the bruised section of Prax’s jaw while Prax leaned into him with his eyes shut, trying not to make any embarrassing noises, when someone said:

“Good God, get a room!”

It was Holden. He stood with his arms crossed, scowling down at them. Judging by the trouble he was having keeping his frown in place, his displeasure was mixed with amusement. 

“Hi, Cap,” said Amos, unabashedly planting a final kiss on Prax’s temple before getting to his feet and helping Prax up. “Found him.”

“You do remember promising to keep me posted, right? I only found you because Bobbie spotted you on one of the security cameras! She said it looked like you’d been in fight so I came as fast as I could, ready to rescue your sorry asses, and what do I find? You two idiots making out under a potted plant! Whose blood is that, anyway?”

“We can explain everything,” said Prax. 

“Clarissa! Bobbie! Alex! Over here!” That was Naomi, approaching from the other side of the group of tables. Prax could see the other three crew members jogging to catch up with her, Bobbie well in the lead. 

The next few minutes were a confusion of questions (“What the hell happened?” “Where were you, Prax?” “Amos, who did that to your _face?_ ”) and explanations (delivered in a jumbled tag-team fashion by Amos and Prax). By the time they’d concluded their account of the comedy of errors that was their reunion, Naomi was laughing so hard that she had to lean against Holden to stay on her feet. 

“I told you,” she said. “I told you! We can’t hold a candle to this sort of performance!” Prax had no idea what she was talking about. He was just glad she wasn’t angry. 

Alex clapped Prax on the shoulder. “Good to see you, Doc. You sure had us goin’ in circles there.”

“It won’t happen again,” Prax assured him.

“Hell yeah it won’t. I’m never letting you out of my sight as long as we live,” said Amos, gingerly testing his bottom lip with his fingers. 

Holden rolled his eyes. “Good thing that’s not creepy at all.”

Prax noticed Clarissa, hanging back as she often did, and went over to her. “Hi.”

“Hi.”

“Sorry for the dramatic entrance. How are you doing?”

“Perfectly well - now.” She smiled at him with shy joy, almost bright enough to erase the marks of weariness and illness on her thin face. He hugged her, careful not to squeeze her frail frame too firmly, and then made a noise like _ooof_ when she hugged him back as hard as she could. Over Clarissa’s shoulder, he saw Bobbie watching them. She raised an eyebrow and nodded, as if confirming something. 

“Let’s fetch your gear and get aboard before anything else happens, Prax,” said Holden. “The _Roci_ needs her botanist.”

“Hey, that’s your cue!” said Amos, elbowing Prax. “Say it!”

“Say what?”

“You know - ‘Dammit, Jim, I’m a med tech - ”

“ - not a botanist!” chorused Alex, Bobbie, and Naomi.

Holden groaned. “I’m leaving you all here, I swear to God.”

“Technically, I’m both - ” began Prax, but Amos put an arm around him. 

“Don’t ruin the moment, Doc. C’mon, let’s go home.”

_Home._

“Sounds good,” said Praxidike Meng.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This turned into a POV-fest of far greater proportions than I intended (for a change), hence the extended time between updates. Ah well, more chapter for you all to enjoy - at least I hope you do!
> 
> I had fun working in some of my favorite bits of the books that got left out of the show - like Prax starting out in botany by trying to grow weed on the sly? Canon. Naomi being six feet tall? Canon. Holden being a lit-and-poetry nerd? Canon. OK I made that one up. But it totally could be. 
> 
> Thanks for bearing with me to the end! I’d love to hear what you think!
> 
> P.S. I wrote a short fic called “A Close Shave,” giving Amos’s POV of the shaving-in-Prax’s-bathroom incident.


End file.
